


Bond I: Dissonance

by LittleRedPencil



Series: Bond [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam (Voltron) Lives, Adam/Shiro (Voltron) Reunion, Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Season/Series 08, BAMF Allura (Voltron), Established Adam/Shiro (Voltron), F/M, Fix-It, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Paladin Adam (Voltron), Post-Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 07, Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 07 Fix-It, Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08, Voltron: Legendary Defender Season/Series 08 Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-07-15 13:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 190,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRedPencil/pseuds/LittleRedPencil
Summary: After the Battle of the Last Stand there's been a lull in the war, but time that should be spent preparing to take the Lions into battle hits a snag when Lance's injuries from the last fight only seem to worsen. Unable to figure out the cause, he's forced to give up piloting the Red Lion for his own health and transfers to the IGF-Atlas as an MFE pilot under Shiro and James Griffin. Everything seems fine with the change until the enemy takes advantage of the divided team, and Lance and James disappear on a routine scouting duty. Finding themselves captive on a Fire of Purification outpost, James takes advantage of a run-in with another human prisoner while Lance gives everyone involved a hard-learned lesson on how dangerous even a Lion-less Paladin can be.





	1. The Last Stand

**Author's Note:**

> * Some time-hopping in narrative,  
> * Galtean Klance/Laith, Adam is alive, Lotor is back, everything is on fire
> 
> *Some fights have high or high-implied violence. These are warned for in the chapter beginning notes.

####  _Six months ago:_

_Black…I need you, buddy. Please be able to hear me._ The urgency feels almost physical, bordering on desperation. He has a team depending on him, he’s their leader whether he’s ready to be or not.

_Green? Let’s do this, girl. I need you to help me protect my family._ There’s an undercurrent of uncertainty, but it’s purely a confidence issue. Her determination is apparent.

_Let’s go, Yellow…this is it, boy._ Some hesitation, but a newfound pride that wasn’t there before. Purpose has wiped out the usual reluctance.

_Come on, Blue. I know we can do this._ Traces of nervousness colored by fear, but she’s ready to bring a good fight.

_I wish Veronica would’ve just stayed back at the stupid Garrison._ Broken, distracted. Too much to lose, too close by, with nothing to protect it but himself.

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _10,000 years ago:_

They had always existed, at least in the measurements of this universe. They roamed from one spot to another in prides, grazing the outermost edges of realities at their leisure with little regard for the rises and falls of mortals. The quintessence fields were filled with light and life, they needed no other world. 

Until the disappearance of the White One, and the curious troubles that followed.

It started with the dying of the fires, a fraying at the edge of the quintessence field that left a curious emptiness. A nothing where once there was something, cold where lakes of rainbow flame once licked the shining obsidian shores. She wasn’t young when it happened nor was she old, grown enough to care for herself but still mateless and not yet a mother. 

Her mind was free enough of responsibilities to worry about the encroaching darkness more than the rest of the pride. The quintessence fields went on forever, they said, and the nothing crept in slowly. They always moved on eventually, soon enough they would leave the curious spectacle behind. She worried for nothing, they told her, the time she spent pacing the edge of their territory keeping watch was wasted. 

She did not say “I told you so” when the excitable blue visitor came, a friendly stop on her way to scout a new home for her own pride. She did not say she had warned them when the newcomer brought tales of growing concern, of swathes of golden sea falling empty and losing their shimmer. The other reds found this news disconcerting, finally, but not enough to do anything about it. 

The blue rested for a while and then continued on. She walked with her to the edges of the golden savanna, where they paused to take in the gash of eerie blackness against the backdrop of a shining world. 

“It’s not just the seas or the fires,” the blue confided as they walked. “Parts of the emerald forests are wilting, and in some places the pearl deserts are sinking in on themselves. The black pride is the only one I haven’t heard any stories from, but this is everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before it reaches their skies too.” 

“The White One hasn’t been seen in…a very long time,” the red mused. She wasn’t terribly certain how long, time was such an abstract concept here in the forever, but she was sure that it had been longer than anyone would like. “This might have something to do with him being gone.” 

“A yellow told me once that the White One thought we should be teaching mortals the secrets of the universe,” the blue answered. “Only certain ones, of course. Special ones. I’m not really sure how you pick one temporary speck out from the another, or how much you can possibly teach it before it’s dead anyway. Maybe that’s what’s keeping him, they get old and die before he can teach them much and he has to start over.” 

It was a ridiculous idea, the White One using eons of learning and focus to become the most powerful guardian among them, and then just up and deciding to go play with mortals. The red was disgusted. 

The blue went on her way, and the red returned to her routine. She paced the pools of liquid garnets, keeping a watchful eye on the black nothing, and continued to worry in silence. 

By the time the call came, she expected it. Another stretch of molten flames had cooled and given way to empty shadows when the young black arrived bearing the news. The stars above the floating caves were beginning to go out, leaving the once velveteen field of diamonds a sinister open wound in existence. Most of the quintessence fields were untouched, and undoubtedly they could all go on for eternity without it becoming a real problem, but they could not continue to call themselves the guardians of this plane without taking action. A gathering was being called at the Oasis. 

She had never seen a gathering of the guardians. One had to have happened before at some point for everyone to know where to go, but it was before even she had come to be. They were rare enough for this to finally light a metaphorical fire under her lazy pride’s paws. They gathered up the cubs and began the trek to the Oasis, following the lead of the pride’s oldest pair. 

She brought up the rear, having no idea of where to lead and no cubs to wrangle. Another young female and two young males joined her, providing enough conversation to assure her she wasn’t the only one harboring doubts and fears. Those doubts and fears were assuaged to an extent as they traveled across plains and moors, through mountain valleys and across running rivers. In much of the quintessence everything was still pristine, untouched by the disease that had started nibbling at the edge of their world. 

The Oasis lay between dunes of the pearl desert, a gently rippling expanse of silver water flanked by crystalline trees. She didn’t know who had built the temple at the far edge, only that this was a sacred place for gathering. Here, in the very place where a young red had once trained himself to become the White One, had pushed himself beyond all known limits and established himself as their leader only to disappear when needed the most. 

Aside from the blue, she had never seen any guardians outside of her pride before. Like the blues of the silver seas, the yellows of the pearl deserts were larger than her, while the greens of the emerald forest more closely resembled her fiery family. The blacks of the floating crystal caves were the biggest of all, the delicately feathered wings gracing their backs adding to their majestic bulk. 

She made her way to the edge of the oasis to drink, looking around at all the jeweltone pelts glittering in the sun. Old friends from different prides greeted one another, calling out to cubs and younger members to come and make acquaintance. She heard her own mother call for her but ignored it, in no mood for making friends. This meeting was not a social call. 

She looked at her reflection in the water, wondering how long it would be before this beautiful oasis disappeared as well. Soon? Never? Maybe she was just dreaming up problems where there were none. Their kind had existed since the beginning of everything, somebody had to know something. Answers would be found here today, things would be fixed. 

“It’s a very nice reflection and I’d stare at it too, but you might want to move to let the little ones in.” 

Broken from her reverie, the red looked up to find a black male lounging nearby on an outcropping of quartz. He was easily twice her size but he didn’t seem very old, maybe a few eons longer than her in this world. She looked back down at the edge of the pool and saw that she was blocking the shallowest point, standing in the way of a little green and yellow who were playing quietly while patiently waiting their turn. 

The red stepped up on an outgrowth of the quartz, watching the tiny cubs break apart so they could wander over and get a drink. 

“I guess I’m just not used to so many in so small a space,” she admitted, looking out again over the gathering from her slightly higher height. “We tend to spread out more and don’t usually have to watch our step.” 

“Oh, there’s plenty of room here, you just have to spread up instead of out.” 

The black stretched lazily and rolled over on his side, leaving more space at the top. He tapped the surface of the quartz invitingly with his claws and she was briefly tempted. He was certainly a handsome one, and she found the blacks in general exuded a quiet sort of confidence that was reassuring in these uncertain times. 

But again, she was not hear to make friends. Annoyed at herself, she looked away to gaze at the temple instead. 

“There must be a reason for everyone to be here, if there wasn’t no meeting would have been called. A message could have been sent out, but we’re all here. I don’t suppose you have any idea why?” 

“All work, no play, huh?” The black asked. The red thought she picked up a faint trace of amusement in his voice. “You’re the very serious type, I see. Well, let me help put some worries to rest, then. There’s no impending apocalyptic scenario for us, it’s just a precaution.” 

He sounded very confident in his words, and it did put some of her worries to rest. Since the black pride had been the ones to call the meeting, she trusted he would know what he was talking about. 

“Thank you.” 

“No problem.” The black looked over at the mingling reds, then back down to her. “So, no cubs?” 

“No.” 

“Mate?” 

“No?” 

“Me either.” 

She wasn’t really sure how she was supposed to answer that. She wasn’t very good at answering most things, to be honest, she much preferred being alone and getting things done. She looked around again and slowly climbed down from her low perch. 

“Well, see you, I guess,” she said awkwardly. 

“Sure.” Was he smiling? What was there even to smile about? This whole conversation was becoming weird. “Rock’s always open. You know, if you change your mind.” 

“Um, I think I’ll be okay. There are plenty of other open rocks.” 

She picked her way carefully over another playing group of cubs and began the search for something productive to do. As she went, she could have sworn she heard him chuckle. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _Six months ago:_  

The silence of Saturn’s moons was broken by the cacophony of roars, but even before that the noise was deafening. The psychic energy swirled thoughts around in the surrounding abyss like a storm, some of them old and some of them new and some of them only echoes of what hadn’t yet come to be. Rippling through the undercurrent of quintessence that filled all of existence, the mental screams moving through this system were like a hurricane. 

The Black Lion was the first to heed his Paladin’s call, as always. And why shouldn’t he? Those who presented themselves to him always knew his worth, the three pilots he’d deemed worthy of his attention had all been easily bonded with once they’d proven they deserved their place. He and his Paladin were leaders and protectors and needed to work together, if he was being called from such a great distance then it was important. 

Green was next, then Yellow. Both had found kindred spirits, growing and learning to be great. It wasn’t quite the symbiotic relationship that was the eventual end game, but the green and yellow Paladins were not just respected by their Lions. They were loved, an affection that strengthened their connection far beyond the young pilots’ budding skills. 

Blue wasn’t far behind, the most agreeable and accepting of the lot. Her bond with her new Paladin was still young and somewhat weak, a staticy overlay on top of the degrading connection with her old Paladin. She felt the calls rippling through her pride rather than heard them herself and knew that she was needed. 

Urgent, desperate, afraid, resolute. These feelings, more than words, communicated the direness of the situation as the Lions roared to life and took off from the moon’s surface. 

Behind them, silent and still, the Red Lion remained. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _10,000 years ago:_  

The gathering went exactly like the young black imagined it would. It was long, it was boring, and by the time it was over he was chomping at the bit to do something besides lay around waiting for everyone to stop socializing. 

His mother was the leader of the black pride, and it was fortuitous that she was just as impatient a soul as he was. When everything was called to order she quickly thanked everyone for coming and then got down to business. 

“The quintessence is not in any dire danger,” she announced to murmurs of relief. “In fact, we have no real reason to worry. But just because something isn’t a problem to us doesn’t mean it’s not still a problem. We have sent a scout who returned to us with news that we should all be aware of. Just in case.” 

She looked in his direction and all eyes turned to him. Finally. He rose from where he lay on a quartz outcropping overlooking the oasis, moving instead to stand at the edge. Down below he saw many curious faces looking up in admiration, which was nice. He knew his pride must be very impressive to the smaller colors, and it was certainly a nice boost to his ego. He didn’t boast often, it was unbecoming of one who would eventually be a leader, but he thought he looked rather good up here. 

There was one particular face that only seemed vaguely interested. The somewhat indifferent red female made it obvious with her annoyed pacing at the back that she didn’t care what he looked like as long as he got on with what he had to say. It was a bit off-putting, to be honest. What point was there in being impressive if you didn’t impress? 

“I do have news,” he confirmed, turning his attention to the task at hand. He put the pretty red fur out of his mind and became all business. “I have been to the edges of the quintessence fields, to the places where realities meet. What I found is that there are mortal populations using the quintessence itself as an energy source to power their advancement. On the whole, this isn’t worrying. Quintessence can’t be destroyed, and it will eventually begin to trickle back into the field. Some of us have seen it before.” 

Relief from all sides. What he said was true, every now and then a race of mortals rose in some reality and discovered quintessence as an energy source. They used it, breaking it down, and eventually its byproducts seeped back into the field and reformed. 

“What does worry me is that quintessence is also being used by another reality,” he added. “And far too much of it for it to be a power source. Something is tapping into it in a way I haven’t seen before. It isn’t completely natural. I don’t want to lay blame or speak ill, but the sudden rise in use is curiously timed…”

He didn’t finish, and he knew he didn’t have to. This sudden spike in depletion of quintessence went hand-in-hand with the White One’s little experiment with reaching out to mortals. 

_Someone_ had taught them how to tap it and use it on a scale far beyond simply powering ships.

“Now, it could be nothing, of course. The faster it gets used, the faster it builds up, and instead of a trickle back into the field it becomes a river. In the end, whatever species is using it will die out and everything will go back to normal. But we’ve never seen use on quite this scale…so you’re all here because I’m proposing a deeper investigation by a group of volunteers.” 

“Define “deeper investigation,” please,” a yellow male requested. “Not that I’m doubtful or anything, but how much deeper can we even go after the edge of realities?” 

This was the part none of them were going to like. 

“Well, the White One left the quintessence field to interact with one reality,” the black pointed out. “I’m proposing a group could do the same. It definitely wouldn’t be easy, realities are all governed by very strict physical laws. We would need something to work through, some kind of avatars.” 

“Do you have any idea what the odds are of getting one—just one, let alone a group—through the reality barrier and to the other side in one piece?” It was a green female talking now, but if he had to guess he would say she sounded more intrigued than incredulous. “Astronomical cubed, probably. The vibrations are different, it’s not like you could just stumble through the curtain and pick out something to wear on the other side. You’d be pure energy through approximately ninety percent of the shift, and unconstrained energy doesn’t exactly stay together when pressed on by the physical laws of most realities-“ 

“I think what she’s trying to say is, that sounds kinda dumb,” a blue female interrupted. 

“But in an intelligent way,” the yellow said diplomatically. “So…intelligently dumb?” 

“No, awesomely dumb,” the blue answered. “You got me. Where do I sign up?” 

“I just said you were going to get ripped apart into nothing the second you cross the barrier, what part of that is awesome?” The green asked skeptically. 

“You did say that,” the blue acknowledged. “But you also sound like the kind of loser who’s already figuring out a way to get around it, so pretty much all I’m hearing at this point is “let’s go wreck somebody else’s place.” 

“This…this isn’t a fun and games trip,” the young black stammered, uncertain of how to handle the blue’s strange enthusiasm. “This is a serious expedition. We could find that mortals are tapping into quintessence to do some pretty awful things and have to get involved. We could have to fight to keep our home safe.” 

“Are you doing math in the sand?” The yellow asked the green off to the side. “That looks like you’re scratching very complicated math into the sand.” 

“Well, yes, because everything would have to be very precise,” the green said thoughtfully. “It’s possible to bond with something trans-reality that’s passing through the quintessence field and ride it to the other side, the problem is that it wouldn’t be organic. It’s a little hard to investigate  _or_ fight if you can’t move. But nothing organic can pass through the field unless it’s safely encased in something trans-reality, and currently the only thing that passes with any regularity is mineral. It’s also pretty rare. The probability of coming across something soon would be something like…um, divide by zero, carry the infinity…”

“Wait, you guys—” The black tried again. 

“Go on,” the blue encouraged, hopping over another confused-looking yellow to get a closer look at the green’s work. “I have no idea what you’re actually saying, but you sound very confident and I believe in you.” 

“Why are you adding letters?” The yellow sounded worried. “I feel like that means this is getting more complicated.” 

“We’re dividing by zero and carrying the infinity, of course it’s getting complicated,” the blue scoffed. “When was the last time you carried the infinity?” 

“I don’t…I’m not sure. Does that mean something outside of math?” 

“Guys!” The black shouted them down, finally getting the three of them to look at him. “I really don’t think you understand how serious this really is. This is…we’re talking about something that might destroy us completely before we’re even on the other side.” 

“If it’s so terrible, then why are you even suggesting it?” The yellow asked. 

The black didn’t have an answer. He looked around at the rainbow of guardians around the Oasis, the confusion and curiosity written on their faces. They could tell he thought it was important, but none of them could see why. 

“Because he intends to look for the White One.” 

The pretty, sullen red who had been pacing in the back began to make her way toward the water’s edge. She had an air about her, nothing violent or cruel, but it made everyone part for her just the same.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” She asked. “You think that’s where the White One is, in this reality that’s directly tapping the quintessence field. You think the White Guardian has given our secrets to mortals who you’re afraid will misuse them. You want to investigate this because you want to know how far it will go, whether it will threaten the whole quintessence field one day.” 

“Oh! I know you!” The blue piped up as the red reached the base of the quartz where the black stood. “You’re that nice red who walked with me across the savanna!” 

“And  _you’re_ in over your head,” the red informed her. “What he’s talking about is dangerous. Say you do hitch a ride on a trans-reality comet…which is what she’s talking about, right? What do you do then? Float around on a hunk of rock in one of the physical realities for all eternity?”

“Not all eternity, just until we get close enough to some life forms,” the green answered. “I mean, physical beings are very simple, if you find some intelligent ones to bond with it doesn’t matter if you ever leave the comet. You can use them as your senses to experience everything through the quintessence if the bond is strong enough. So we find some, link up, do the job, and wait for the comet to hop back through the field to bring us home…which it will do, eventually.” 

“Sounds like a solid plan to me,” the blue decided. 

“You know, I was sort of hoping for some volunteers who were a little more…experienced,” the black frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, that is a very solid plan. But you aren’t exactly serious mission material.” 

“Well that kind of sucks for you, because I don’t see anybody else volunteering,” the blue pointed out. 

Sure enough, the rest of the guardians present were looking at them in varying mixes of skepticism and disbelief. The black looked across the Oasis to the temple steps where his mother sat, watching the whole event grimly. She understood, and she also believed his trip was necessary. But she couldn’t command anyone to go with him, that wasn’t how their world worked. 

The black looked back down at the excitable blue. She wasn’t young, really, and neither were the green or the yellow. Just young _er_ than he would have liked. Then again, maybe it took youth and a lack of sense to go through with what he intended.

“All right, I guess you made the team then,” he relented before turning to the green. “Are you volunteering too?” 

“I have a feeling none of you will get very far without me,” the green reasoned. “None of you seem to understand the math. And…I can tell this is very important. So yes, I suppose I am.” 

He nodded, climbing down from the quartz outcropping. He wanted to heave a frustrated sigh, but leaders didn’t show their weaknesses in front of a full gathering of their people. 

“Let’s go, then. We have a lot to talk about.” 

He started for the temple and the green followed. The blue started to, then looked back at the yellow. 

“You were coming too, right?” She prompted. 

“Me? No, why would I be going?” 

“Uh, because we’re all friends now and you don’t leave your friends hanging out to dry?” The blue said. 

“I’ve never met you before in my life!” 

“We shared a moment! We’re friends forever now, that’s how this works. Trust me, I’m an authority on the subject.” 

“I…that’s…what even…?” The yellow stuttered. He lowered his head, ears flat, and plodded along after the blue. “Ugh.” 

The black paused at the base of the stairs to let the green go ahead of him. The blue bounded past shortly after, with the yellow plodding along behind. He didn’t think they really understood what they were in for, but he hoped that by the time he was done with a more detailed briefing they would agree that they weren’t ready. 

He started up the stairs himself, looking down in surprise as the red fell into step beside him. He didn’t know what had happened to her to make her so closed off, but she looked like she was ready to fight the whole universe. 

“Don’t look so shocked,” she spoke before he could say anything. “I can already tell you’re not a very good leader, and somebody has to keep those three alive.” 

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _Six months ago:_  

“We’ve been spotted!” 

“Augh!” 

“Watch out, okay? Be careful!” 

“I know!” 

Explosions and laserfire, half drowned by the roar of a vehicle engine. 

“Lance, where are you? Can you hear me?” 

A squeal of tires and more laserfire. 

“Whoa! Veronica! Look out!” 

A low explosion, cries of surprise. Screams of pain, followed by radio silence from the McClain feed. The other radios crackled with the worried voices of teammates. 

“Oh no.” 

“Lance, are you there?” The pink Paladin’s voice was unsteady. 

“Lance, where are you, buddy?” The yellow Paladin’s disbelief was audible, as if it were impossible for what they imagined to have happened. 

“Lance, can you hear us?” The green Paladin, enunciating loud and clear, understanding that perhaps the issue was some dizziness associated with an impact. 

“Lance?” 

The red Paladin’s voice held none of those. It was a helpless anger, frustration at being unable to help. It was the anguish of a leader who didn’t really want to be, who felt the weight of a possible death weighing down on his shoulders. 

“ _Lance!_ Come in!”

Agony. Hopelessness. A gut-wrenching ache that rippled outward, magnified by his link to the Black Lion and lingering bond with the Red. That was what reached her out beyond Jupiter, that fire that boiled the blood and nursed a fledgling fury. She didn’t understand going to war over honor, or fighting a battle for righteousness.

But she understood rage. 

_Come on, Lance. Answer. Please answer me._

There was still no call from her Paladin. Admittedly, the blue Paladin’s bond with her was weak, constantly disrupted by the low self-esteem he kept hidden away and his uncertainty about the future. But she knew something was wrong when she felt the anguish of her old pilot, heard him screaming voicelessly. She took off in the direction of the call because she felt the boy’s pain. It dug into unhealed wounds and set ablaze a flame that had dwindled down to embers over the centuries but had never fully extinguished. It fueled her flight, following the path her pride had already taken. 

_Don’t do this to us, I need you to answer. I need you to be okay._

Red was the fastest. The most temperamental. The most changeable. She moved like a wildfire, her claws tearing apart the little tin hulls of Galra ships unfortunate enough to be in her way, leaving a trail of blackened and burned metal in her wake. There was no mercy for anything standing between her and her goal. 

_Please. Please…_ **please**.

She did not slow down as she broke the little blue planet’s atmosphere. She felt him here, the blue Paladin, but only because he was close. Only here, closing the distance, could she feel his emotional numbness and quiet resignation. It was so faint, barely a glimmer. 

This boy did not belong on the front lines of a war. 

He wasn’t even calling to her, completely wrapped up in the fog of battle. What Red responded to was her old Paladin, to Keith’s screams on Lance’s behalf. And even then, only until this bond finally broke and he was permanently the problem of Black. 

Her paws slammed into the ground with the force of one hundred tons, cratering the earth beneath and crushing the flimsy Galra striker caught in her predatory dive. She roared, letting all of the nearby trespassers know that she was here. 

Ready. And angry. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _10,000 years ago:_  

Two-legs were dull, which wasn’t a great surprise. This universe was mostly empty, just a bunch of rocks floating listlessly around balls of fire that eventually flared and went out. The habitable rocks were few and far between and, as Green had explained to them in nauseating detail with no prompting whatsoever, the odds of them crashing into this one were so small that according to the numbers it hadn’t even happened. 

She was a sweetheart, Green, and like Blue she was optimistic to the point of being fearless. Which was ironic, since she insisted on constantly explaining why, according to calculations, nothing they did should ever actually work. 

Red had taken to straying from the comet to avoid those conversations. Green meant well and Blue was very friendly, but she didn’t want to get close to them. Eventually this mission would end, they would return to the quintessence field, and she would go back to her pride and not see them again. It was a boon to find that although they were bound to the chunk of metal and rock they were free to move within a certain range. 

This was not the planet where they’d landed, that one was called Daibazaal. This place, where the comet had been taken, was called Altea. Red did not like it. 

There was something about this planet, a familiar undercurrent that sent a tingle of unease through her. None of the others seemed to feel it, their own ventures were made out of curiosity or for entertainment. They shrugged it off, leaving her just as frustrated here as she had been back in the quintessence, and once again on her own to get something done. 

Red’s preferred method of investigation was a two-legs they called Alfor. He was interesting to her because he had recognized the nature of the trans-reality comet, something she had not believed the creatures of this realm capable of understanding. He was researching it, working with it, trying to uncover its secrets. 

Alfor’s hands were easy for her to guide. He was surprisingly open, unlike many of the Alteans on his team, so readable and unreserved. When she looked through his eyes she saw a beauty in things that she herself was unable to perceive. 

He was, however, a very simple creature. As Red rested near Black, her mind reaching across the galaxy to Daibazaal through the link she’d formed with Alfor, she couldn’t help but laugh at his revelations. 

“The ore practically engineers itself,” he gushed with a childlike excitement. “It’s…frightening in a way.” 

Next to her she felt Black’s rumble of amusement as he watched through the eyes of the Galra he had chosen. Zarkon, they called him, the ruler of the planet where they’d landed and the obvious choice of avatar for the one supposedly leading the pride. Black kept watch on him a lot these days, since their arrival had caused an open rift between realities. 

“How are the ships coming along, anyway?” Black asked. “You’ve been working on those for a while.” 

“The two-legs work slowly, but they’re nearly finished,” Red answered. “It’s fortunate these species are as advanced as they are, but they don’t understand nearly enough for this to be as easy as it should be. Alfor doesn’t even understand half of the things they’re built to do, or how they’re built to do them.” 

“How long do you think before we’ll be able to use them?” Black nudged her lightly. “We have to close this rift. It’s fine if they start using quintessence as an energy source, they’ll all be extinct before it makes a dent, but I don’t like how wrapped up in it this Altean woman is getting.” 

“I agree. Powering ships is one thing, but it looks like these Alteans are the ones who are able to interact directly with the quintessence fields. The less direct access they have to it, the better.” 

Blue made her appearance then, manifesting from wherever she had been making trouble to step cheerfully on Red’s back as she climbed over. Blue dropped down between the two of them, a paw around each, a disturbingly physical personality they had all eventually grown used to. 

“Good morning Number One and Number Two,” she said brightly. “I’m ranking you all by attractiveness today, by the way.” 

“What happened to age?” Black asked. 

“And height?” Red chimed in. 

“And tail length?” Yellow came to sit beside them, along with Green. The two followed Blue everywhere, she had become the de-facto leader of the trio. “And when are you going to get a rating system where I’m not always Number Three?” 

“Look, I’m trying here. I’ve had sixteen different rating systems, it’s not my fault you fall average in every single index.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“So, these ships,” Green ignored the banter. “Why ships at all? We only needed avatars, why not just pick and choose from the people here?” 

“Because the more intelligent species are, the smaller and weaker they are,” Red answered matter-of-factly. “I never realized how much  _bigger_ we are than so many things here. The ships are big enough to be a decent skin, and hold a biological avatar at the same time. I think we’ll all be much more comfortable if we’re able to use our teeth and claws if necessary.”

“I just think it’s kind of nice for everyone involved,” Yellow said. “We use the avatars but aren’t in their heads constantly, they use us to get around but don’t have full access to everything we know. Privacy is very important.” 

“So is size,” Black answered. “The ships—“ 

“Blaytz calls them “Lions,” Blue interrupted. “There’s this one two-legs who hangs around the palace—that’s who Blaytz is—and I’m learning a lot from watching him. Here, look.” 

Blue rolled off of the other two guardians and came around to face them, flopping down in front of Red and crossing her paws. She gave her most charming smile, leaning in close. 

“Hey there, Beautiful,” she said huskily. “Is that a carrot in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” 

“…I don’t have pockets,” Red answered flatly. “And I’m never happy to see you.” 

“What’s a carrot?” Yellow asked. 

“Okay, it’s a metaphorical pocket,” Blue huffed. Dropping her flirtatious grin. “And carrots are some kind of plant they got from a primitive little planet somewhere. The one where lions come from.” 

“I don’t think you know what “metaphorical” means,” Green mused. 

“Do people here carry carrots in their pockets a lot?” Yellow wondered. 

Blue let her head fall forward, burying her face in her paws in frustration. Red pushed the conversation back on track, something that seemed to have become her sole responsibility these days. 

“Size is important,” she finally responded to Black. “And the ships—“ 

“Lions,” Blue said, muffled. 

“Lions,” Red sighed. “The Lions are very large compared to the two-legs, but to close that rift yes, they need to be bigger. But a good thing about mechanical objects is that they can have multiple purposes. The Lions combine into a larger humanoid form. It’s strange, I know, but for the purposes of closing that rift we’ll need two legs for stability and two arms for manipulating things. 

“Oh! I call a leg,” Yellow declared. 

“You don’t get to call anything at this point, they’re  _finished_ ,” Red groaned. “But yes, you get a leg. Okay, look, Black has bonded with Zarkon and Blue has obviously taken a shine to Blaytz. That’s convenient since they’re in the same inner circle of leaders. Green, Yellow, you’re going to have to pick avatars soon too.”

“You’re going with Alfor I presume?” Black asked, looking bemused. 

“Yes. Is there a problem with that?” 

“No. He just doesn’t seem your type is all,” Black answered carefully. “He’s very cheerful and fun-loving, and you’re…well…” 

“Alfor is a man who knows how to not abuse power,” Red answered bluntly. “He could lead an empire if he wanted to but he has no interest in doing so. I very much prefer people who have some semblance of restraint and self-control, unlike some.” 

“Overrated,” Blue blurted out. She lifted her head to look at the others. “So what are we calling this giant humanoid robot?” 

“A robot.” 

“No, I mean, what’s its name?” Blue pressed. “Everything here has a name. Blaytz, Zarkon, Alfor. Planets, stars, rivers, forests, they even name buildings. Let’s call it…Voltron.” 

“We’re not naming it,” Red grimaced. “It’s a robot. Even if it wasn’t, naming it “Voltron” is one of the dumbest things you’ve ever come up with. And believe me, that bar is very high.” 

“Shouldn’t a name mean something?” Green asked. “That just sounds like garbled noises.” 

“It does mean something,” Blue defended. “Vehicularly Operated Lions with Technologically Reflexive Organic Nexibility.” 

The other four guardians fell silent, staring at her in disbelief. She smiled angelically, wide-eyed and innocent. 

“Votes for another name? None? Awesome, Voltron it is,” Blue decided, getting to her feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have places to do and things to be. Later, Hot Stuff.” 

She winked at Black and bounded away, leaving them all dumbfounded. 

“I hate that she’s a lot smarter than she seems,” Green grumbled, slowly getting up and following. 

Yellow trailed off after her, and once again everything was quiet. In the background the sounds of Alfor and Zarkon speaking bubbled up, but it was a white noise trickling over bonds stretching out through the quintessence. Red looked over at Black and found him looking at her thoughtfully. 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You’re staring.” 

“I know. It’s just…” he trailed off, looking pensive. 

“I’m not a mind-reader, you know,” she snapped. “You have to finish your sentences.” 

Black looked very serious, letting out a slow breath before gazing off into the distance as if pondering life’s greatest mysteries. 

“If today’s scale is attractiveness, which of us is Number One and which is Number Two?” 

Red liked to think she had excellent self-control, but even masters made mistakes on occasion. Black’s shout when she bit him was very satisfying indeed. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

####  _Six months ago:_  

The sheer power being thrown around for the last twenty minutes would have been enough to make a physical being vomit. Nothing had been off the table, no plane left untapped. The Lions had access to unfathomable wells of firepower but they were limited by what the immature bonds with their Paladins could channel, and the burnout from pulling too much over too short a time was immense. 

In the quiet following the defeat of the strange robobeast, the sudden blaring of alarms was a punch in the gut. 

_This isn’t good. Status reports on your Paladins._

_Functional_ ,” Green answered worriedly.  _Barely. Pidge is very young, I don’t know how much more of this she can take._

_Allura’s okay, but she’s an Alchemist. I don’t think the quintessence flying around hurt her as much as the others,_ Blue offered.

_Hunk’s physically fine, just some pretty bad bruises,  _Yellow chimed in.  _Totally exhausted, though. More emotionally scarred than anything._

_ Inoperative.  _

_Well you need to get Lance “operative,”_ Black answered sharply.  _According to Hunk’s readings this thing is going to blow, I don’t need to tell you what Keith is going to order._

_He’s literally bleeding from his ears. The backlash through his bayard from that last attack has him at his limits._

_Keith had the same backlash and he’s all right. Lance is just as strong, you’re overreacting._

Keith  _is Galra!_ Red snarled back with an intensity that shocked all of them except Black.  _Lance is only human. So is Hunk, so is Pidge. You run any more energy through them and it might kill them all. I don’t care what Keith orders, shut him down._

_If I do that, we kill this whole planet.  _Black was, as always, infuriatingly calm.

_Allura can create a wormhole! She doesn’t need a damned Teledav, we can focus her power the same way—_

_I don’t think we have time for her to learn that,_ Blue said quietly.  _This thing is going to blow everything to hell in only a few minutes._

Red felt Lance’s determination. The metal around her creaked with each movement as he maneuvered the Red Lion under one of the robobeast’s limp limbs. Boosters fired all around, the group began to rise. 

_They’re going to die,  _Red warned again.

_They’re ready to,  _Black said simply.

“It’s been an honor flying with you all,” Keith’s voice whispered over the radios. “Now give it everything you’ve got.” 

Red felt the rising energy levels through the Red Lion’s frame, the vibrations of too much quintessence beginning to run through a physical body not built to withstand it. It wasn’t necessarily a fluke in the Lion’s design, it was built with failsafes to stop potential overload. The Paladin inside, however, was unconsciously overriding those failsafes by sheer force of will.

Lance was not a confident person, he questioned his own abilities and decisions constantly. He never really felt like he fit in with the group and often felt ignored and underappreciated. Red did not understand him, why he continued to throw himself into things, why he continually offered ideas for which he received faint praise at best and scorn more often than not.

Their bond suffered because of this. Keith had been easy, he mirrored Red’s own personality so closely it was almost frightening, but Lance was complicated. Sometimes he and Red were so in sync it nearly matched her bond with Keith, but other times there was a discord that made things difficult.

Here, now, bleeding internally from the earlier ground crash and barely able to function, he was more determined than she had ever sensed him being. More decisive and sure than she had ever felt him be. Red let him fly because she knew he had it in him to be better, but this was the first time she felt like he actually fully belonged in the Red Lion. Why did it take near death to bring out the full potential of some? 

_This thing’s about to go_ , Yellow warned as they reached open space.  _Hunk is fried. Our connection’s breaking up, I’m about to lose power._

_Pidge is gone_ , Green reported. She was already slowing down as her living power adapter passed out.  _Still alive, but overloaded. Bond’s shorted, I’ve got nothing._

_Allura’s still going!_ Blue’s exclamation was tinted with pride.  _Not for much longer, but I think we can go a little bit further!_

_Keith is still awake_ , Black affirmed.  _But he’ll reach his limit any minute now. I don’t know if this thing’s far enough, they have to push harder._

_I’m cutting Lance off._

_Red--_

_NO!  _Red’s response was explosive, washing through the group’s bond like a riptide. Even Hunk and Pidge started to stir, awakening just enough for the Yellow and Green Lions to begin filtering power back to life support systems.  _He’s only pushing because of Keith! I won’t have another Paladin die on my watch because of you and yours!_

Blue cut Allura off suddenly as the others fell behind. Shocked at the vitriol aimed at him, Black abruptly cut off Keith as well. No great sacrifice for either of them, Red knew. She could feel that both pilots were barely alive at this point. 

The robobeast floated ahead of them, beginning to glow softly. Red took over quickly, shifting what power was left as best she could. 

_Kill the life support and communications. I suggest you turn off every system that isn’t defensive, focus everything you have on front shielding,_ Red advised the others angrily.  _This is going to hurt._


	2. Chapter 2

####  _Current day_ : 

It was seven-thirty in the morning when Shiro stepped out of the steaming shower and made his way down the hallway of the cozy, two-bedroom apartment. He was off today since it was Saturday, but he liked to go out early for a run. Early enough that he expected to be alone for the next two hours, at least.

He was only wearing a small towel since he was not expecting the door of the second bedroom to open as he passed, or for his roommate to appear.

“Oh my God!” Keith immediately covered his eyes and turned away. “Come on, man! Put on some pants!”

“Excuse me, I didn’t think you’d be out of hibernation until noon,” Shiro defended. “Besides, it’s nothing you don’t see in the mirror, don’t have an aneurysm.”

He would have been lying if he said he didn’t get a bit of big brother-esque pleasure out of Keith’s discomfort. The reticent young man had never said a word regarding his sexuality, but Shiro had pegged him as struggling and confused the day the kid had overreacted to being singled out and stolen his car. Sometimes a guy saw a kid mirroring his own development a little too perfectly and just knew.

He wasn’t confused anymore, Shiro could tell, but the struggle was still there. And it was just so easy to good-naturedly poke at it sometimes.

“You do look in the mirror, right?” Shiro teased. “Do an occasional check? Make sure everything’s healthy, maybe break out the ruler?”

“I pay rent for this,” Keith marveled. Shiro chuckled and went into his room, leaving his door open a few inches.

“Why are you up so early?” He called. “I didn’t think you guys trained on weekends.”

“Oh, uh…Lance went to the ER last night and got admitted. I’m heading over to the hospital.”

“Wait, what?” Shiro yanked his pants on and grabbed a shirt, following Keith out to the kitchen. “Again? Is he all right?”

“I think so?” Keith sounded uncertain. “They still don’t know what’s wrong. He got hurt pretty bad in the crash before that last fight, it might be an inner ear thing. But…”

“But?” Shiro prodded.

“I think…maybe he’s having a bad reaction to Red,” Keith blurted. “He only ends up in the hospital after he’s been piloting her for more than an hour or two, and sometimes she won’t let him in at all.”

“Like she’s rejecting him?” Shiro asked. “I don’t know, I can’t see any of the Lions intentionally hurting their Paladins.”

“No, Red just lets everyone else hurt them before she steps in,” Keith said bitterly. “And I think he was hurt worse than we know.”

Now they were at the sore spot: Lance and the Red Lion. It was a well-known secret that Keith was still angry about what had gone down at the rendezvous point six months ago, and Shiro half-expected him to crack eventually and pick a fight with Red. Honestly, throwing down with a hundred tons of semi-sentient robot wasn’t even the dumbest thing Keith had ever tried.

“Keith, you know as well as anyone that the bond between a Paladin and his Lion is a complicated thing,” Shiro said gently. “There were a lot of factors that led to what happened to Lance. His sister was there in the car, he was more focused on her safety than on calling Red. And what happened with Allura before the mission obviously didn’t help—“

Keith shot him a look, and he realized too late what he’d said.

“What happened with Allura?”

“Quiznak,” Shiro muttered.

“Shiro!”

Ideally, Shiro could just tell Keith it didn’t matter. He adored Allura as much as he loved all the Paladins, they were his family and he didn’t want to sow discord in the ranks. It had already been half a year since they’d been able to form Voltron thanks to the anger aimed at Red, Blue didn’t need to be mixed in too.

In reality though, his first loyalty of them all would always be to Keith.

“Okay, brother to brother and off the record?”

“Off the record,” Keith agreed.

“Veronica said Allura talked to Lance right before the mission,” Shiro spilled. “She said it was very cute and innocent, just one of those “be safe and come back to me” kind of vibes. But once they were in the car she said Lance seemed distracted and confused. She thought that might be part of why he had trouble calling Red.”

Keith tried to look unaffected, but he really wasn’t as good at being cold and distant as he tried to be. Shiro had a theory that Lance McClain was both the reason Keith was no longer confused and the reason he still struggled.

To Shiro’s eyes, Lance had given no indication of being interested in anyone recently. He was a bit withdrawn thanks to his near-constant trips to the hospital, and he probably wasn’t ready to focus on a relationship until he was better. Still, Shiro didn’t enjoy telling his adoptive baby brother that Lance was being flirted with by their very gorgeous, very royal, very female teammate. The same female teammate Lance had been trying to win over since they’d met.

“I don’t know why he’d be confused, he’s been after her since day one,” Keith said generously. He didn’t even seem too angry with Allura. “But I guess I’d be pretty distracted if the one I was interested in was suddenly flirting with me, too.”

Shiro wasn’t enjoying watching the beginning of Keith’s first genuine heartbreak in real time. It was right up there with watching a kitten get kicked, except Keith had sharper claws to withdraw behind.

“Hey, let me drive you to the hospital,” Shiro offered. Keith looked surprised.

“No, it’s okay, I can take the bike,” he protested.

Was that a faint blush spreading up his neck? Suspicious.

“Don’t be dumb, I want to visit Lance too,” Shiro insisted. Something was up and he didn’t know what, but he was too nosy to not find out. “Let me get my boots.”

Shiro went back to his bedroom and grabbed his combat boots, pulling on a light jacket and digging his keys out of his nightstand. When he came back out Keith was waiting in the living room, ready to go. He was also holding a box, one that had likely been hidden in his room with the intent of making it disappear into his motorcycle bag without being seen.

“Whatcha got there?” Shiro asked curiously as they left the apartment. It was definitely a blush that crept along Keith’s skin this time.

“It’s just a tabletop fountain,” Keith answered offhandedly, refusing to look at him as they headed to the car. “It makes rain noises.”

“For Lance?”

“He likes the rain.” Keith’s tone changed so fast it was almost enough to give whiplash. He went from a poor imitation of indifference to combative and defensive in the span of a heartbeat. “I thought the stupid thing might help him relax and recover before the next Galra attack flattens us all.”

There were the claws.

“I’m not making fun of you, Keith, I swear. That’s really very thoughtful of you.”

It had been years since Krolia had left Earth and Keith’s father had died, Keith had a life now with some semblance of a real family. He had Shiro, who sometimes felt like they really had been born brothers, and Krolia lived nearby with Kolivan and two other Blades. Sam and Colleen Holt lived on base and treated him like one of their own when he was around, and Pidge and Matt had pretty much assimilated him as a third sibling.

But Keith’s early wounds ran deep, and even though there were plenty of people who loved him now to act like a bandage they were still going to take time to heal. He was still very sensitive about anything that could be construed as criticism toward the few emotional gestures he made, and Shiro didn’t want him to think he was being mocked.

“I think he’ll like it,” he assured the younger man. “Calm down, okay? Your teeth are showing.”

Keith snapped his mouth shut petulantly and sank down in the passenger seat, hugging the box. Shiro’s heart ached for him sometimes. Those two years in the Quantum Abyss with Krolia had aged him physically and given him very important time to bond with his mother, but he’d missed very crucial social development that he’d already been falling behind on.

It was hard enough feeling disconnected with one’s peers without throwing in the sort of romantic confusion he had on top of it all. Shiro wished he could shield him from all of the bad.

When they arrived at the hospital, Shiro followed Keith inside and tried to lighten his mood.

“Hey, you’re getting another stripe,” he said encouragingly, gently poking the side of Keith’s face opposite the vivid purple coloring. “Just like your mom.”

“Great. Can’t wait until I start to sprout fur on my ears.”

“Second puberty is going to be hell on earth for you with that attitude,” Shiro warned.

The desk receptionist barely had to look at them before giving them a visitor pass. Lance spent a lot of time in this hospital lately, Shiro didn’t doubt the team were familiar visitors.

It was a general guess he made, but he was proven right as he and Keith stepped off the elevator on the third floor and were met with the sight of Veronica, Romelle, and Allura leaving a room halfway down the hall. Shiro saw Keith stiffen out of the corner of his eye, and he didn’t need to ask why.

Allura was wearing Lance’s jacket.

If the Holts were Keith’s new adopted family, the McClain’s were Allura’s and Romelle’s. Coran had been a wonderful father figure throughout the war, but Mrs. McClain and Lance’s sisters had latched onto the two orphaned Altean girls almost immediately. Now that Veronica was part of the Atlas crew it was rare to see the three young women separate, and Lance was around them often.

Which made this whole situation even stickier.

“Hey,” Shiro greeted the girls himself before something awkward came out of Keith’s mouth. Next to him, Keith fell back slightly. Being a step behind had become his equivalent to hiding behind someone. “How is he?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Veronica said tiredly as they met at the nurse’s station. “The doctors haven’t told us anything since this started.”

“No?”

“Lance won’t let them,” Romelle said, disapproval in her voice. “They said he’s 18 and of sound mind, so his medical records are private unless he shares them.”

“Which makes me nervous,” Allura admitted. “He keeps saying it’s because there’s nothing to share, but I feel like he’s hiding something.”

“He’s constantly surrounded by people asking questions, maybe he just wants some kind of privacy for once,” Keith piped up. So much for not saying anything undiplomatic.

“This isn’t a pre-teen diary, Keith, this is his health,” Veronica returned. “Don’t make it sound like we’re constantly badgering him or something.”

“It’s eight in the morning and you’re here,” Keith pointed out. Shiro heard that edge starting to form in his voice, the one that meant he was about to dial “undiplomatic” up to eleven. He supposed it was a good thing they were in a hospital, just in case Allura body-slammed him into the tile. “Basically admitting you were nagging him.”

“Says the person who is also here at eight in the morning,” Veronica shot back.

Shiro really wished Allura wasn’t wearing Lance’s jacket. The girls were obviously uncertain of where Keith’s attitude was coming from today, and Keith himself probably wasn’t even aware of how much his buttons were being pushed. The jacket, coupled with confirmation that Allura was returning Lance’s feelings, were putting him on the defensive.

Shiro rested his prosthetic hand on Keith’s shoulder, squeezing with a little more pressure than necessary. Nobody here was an enemy, and he knew the kid would’ve been handling this better if he wasn’t already worried about Lance himself.

Keith took the warning. He relaxed a little, and when he spoke again his voice was carefully calm and gracious.

“I’m just bringing him a fountain,” he held up the box.

Keith’s one-eighties often confused the people he spoke with, and the girls were no exception. They were all used to it by now, but that didn’t mean he was any easier for them to read.

They were also three very proud, very confident, very capable young women, who Shiro was 100% certain would eventually run Keith over with a military vehicle if he kept pushing his luck. Lovingly, of course, the way sisters would. Shiro was relieved when all three of them relaxed after Keith backed down.

The undercurrent of electricity running through the whole exchange finally broke down completely when Romelle spoke up next.

“Oh, hey, Shiro, quick question while you’re here. What’s your actual nickname?” It sounded like a weird, out of nowhere question, but it was sincere enough that he could tell she was referencing some recent conversation she’d had. He wondered why people were talking about him.

“It’s just Shiro, that is the nickname,” he answered. “My full name is Takashi Shirogane, Shiro’s just short for my surname.”

“Really? Lance was just telling us he calls Keith ‘Samurai’ sometimes and he said they call you ‘Space Dad.’ But then Veronica said half the Garrison actually calls you ‘Space Daddy.”

Veronica’s eyes went wide. “Romelle.”

“What? I’m sorry,” Romelle was visibly confused. “Is it an insult? I didn’t know it was an insult, you didn’t make it sound bad when you said it.”

“I didn’t even think there was a difference,” Allura admitted. “Aren’t they the same phrase?”

Shiro stared at the three girls in front of him, two very curious Alteans and one very flustered Cuban. But nowhere near as flustered as he was, he felt like he might die on the spot.

“Uh, Keith?” Shiro gave Keith a sideways look, begging for help.

Keith was just as wide-eyed as he was, effectively thrown off his budding rampage by the new twist in the conversation. He looked up at Shiro, who knew immediately from his expression that he was about to make his escape.

“Nope. Nope, not today,” Keith answered, sidestepping around his brother. He gave Shiro a mock knock of encouragement on the shoulder as he passed. “You got this, _Space Daddy_.”

“So the nickname is ‘daddy?’” Romelle inferred.

“It’s…it’s Shiro. Shiro or Commander Shirogane, that’s all,” Shiro stammered.

“Or Silver Fox!” Keith called over his shoulder as he started running.

“No!” Shiro exclaimed. Two nurses at the desk nearby  who had overheard the whole thing finally burst out laughing. Shiro did his best to recover, shooting Veronica  a somewhat lacking glare. “Lieutenant McClain, please do me a favor and explain to Allura and Romelle why what you and Keith said could constitute as sexual harassment under Garrison Code, thank you and excuse me.”

The words all came out in a jumbled rush as he dumped the whole thing on Veronica and slipped around Romelle. The weight of pulling rank was ruined by the fact that he sprinted down the hall after Keith like a frightened gazelle, catching up to him just as he reached Lance’s room.

Shiro started to slow down, but Keith stopped dead just inside the doorway and he still ran into him. He barely caught the edge of the doorjamb before they both went down.

“What are you— _oh_.”

Lance was shirtless on the floor in a full split. He was leaning forward, face down and arms outstretched above his head, legs propped open between the edge of the hospital bed and a chair. It was impressive flexibility, but Shiro had seen him practice it before. Keith, however, hadn’t.

Lance lifted his head at the noise, breaking into a grin when he identified the interlopers.

“Keith, Shiro the Hero,” he greeted. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, but kept the split. “What’s up?”

“What are you even doing?” Keith regained some composure and came forward into the room, awkwardly giving Lance a wide berth.

“It’s called exercise, buddy. Not all of us are naturally built to switch instantly from butter knife to blender like you, we need a little bit of upkeep.”

Lance held his hands up and wiggled his fingers plaintively. Shiro let his prosthetic arm hover over where he sat so he could grab it, and pulled him up to his feet.

“I guess it’s impressive…in its own way,” Keith allowed. Now there was some more youthful awkwardness starting to creep in, but Shiro wasn’t sure if it was because he really didn’t know what to say, or because his big brother was present.

“You should see me do it while hanging two stories high on a silk rope,” Lance took a light jab at his own sore spot. It was another pretty well known secret that he was still hurt by Keith’s decision to leave the team for a stint with the Blade of Marmora. “Too bad you missed it.”

“I didn’t miss it, it was broadcast across three galaxies,” Keith acted very busy with finding the perfect spot on the completely empty bed to put the box down so he didn’t have to look at either of them. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have a recorded copy of you flirting with your Lion like a Cirque du Soleil commercial?  I show it to anybody who makes the mistake of taking you seriously.”

Shiro perked up immediately. There were some very explicit reasons Keith might want a video of Lance doing aerial ballet, and he honestly didn’t think God had given him the strength to avoid asking about them later. Lance, however, honed in on that land mine first.

“Aw, you kept a video of me performing?” He asked, fluttering his eyelashes as he came over to the bed. “I’m touched! Don’t you dare take it into the shower with you.”

Shiro’s gaze shot over to Keith, whose cheeks began to blossom a very impressive shade of pink for somebody of his complexion. It was the kind of offhand comment Lance was known for, simple smartmouth banter with no meaning behind it. Shiro didn’t even think Lance realized Keith might be gay.

“Oh, hey, what’s this?” Keith was saved when Lance saw the box, his curiosity immediately piqued. He dropped the sarcasm and switched gears, seeming to completely forget the previous conversation as he picked up the package. “Is this one of those SoundScape things?”

“I thought it would help you relax,” Keith murmured. His arms crossed and he leaned against the wall, back in quiet defensive mode. “I have the receipt if you want me to return it, it’s no big deal.”

Lance was already tearing the tape off the box to take the fountain out. It was bowl-shaped at the bottom, with an underwater scene cast in colored resin. When he turned it on, soft lights shone where a small waterfall would be once it was filled.

“Sweet! It looks a little bit like Queen Luxia’s garden!” Lance said happily. He started playing with the buttons, going through the different meditation sounds. “The actual garden, not the carnivorous alien one.”

“It has some different settings,” Keith offered quietly. “You might like the gulls. I know you’ve been wanting to go back to Varadero Beach but you’ve been stuck here with us.”

His expression was so soft as he watched Lance sit cross-legged on the bed with his new toy. He wore a faint smile that Shiro knew would disappear the instant the other boy turned around, the one reserved for a very short list of people Keith was willing to care about.

“It’s awesome, I’ll put it next to my bed at home,” Lance promised. “I’m heading out of here in about an hour.”

“Already?” Keith’s smile faded, replaced by surprise. “You just got admitted a few hours ago.”

“Yeah, but it’s the same thing as always,” Lance started tucking the fountain back into its box. “If there’s no news, why stay cooped up here? I’d rather relax at home and be ready for training on Monday.”

“Hm.”

Shiro could tell Keith wanted to voice his disapproval, but he didn’t think it was his place. He could also tell that Lance wasn’t being completely forthcoming as well. He sounded tired, almost resigned, in a way that Shiro recognized but didn’t want to say out loud.

“If you’re leaving soon, we can drive you back,” Shiro offered.

“You don’t have to do that. I can call a cab or have Veronica pick me up.”

“She just left, there’s no sense in making her come back,” Keith sounded like he was giving an order without trying to seem like he was giving an order. “Besides, we’ll be here for a while.”

“If you’re sure,” Lance relented. He slid off the bed and grabbed his clothes from the chair. “Do me a favor and close the door for a sec?”

Having another man change in front of him was nothing new to Shiro. He was a military man and a regular at the gym, and even during their days in the Castle of Lions there had been times when they’d all had to suit up in the same room. Lance himself hadn’t had any shame about it since day one, if he remembered correctly, so it really was no big deal.

Shiro dropped down to sit in the chair, turning his gaze up to a corner of the ceiling out of respect for Lance’s minimum privacy. It only stayed there for a moment before he looked over at Keith. The younger man had closed the door and was now leaning against it, his own eyes pointed up. Shiro timed it, and got up to three seconds before Keith’s eyes slid downward.

He didn’t know what state of undress Lance was in since  _he_  had more tact, but the view must have been a good one. Keith’s eyebrows went up slightly, then his eyes went down lower. Lower. Lower.

They widened, then shot back up to the ceiling and squeezed shut. This was obviously a very tortuous moment in Keith’s existence, the kind of thing that left scars. Shiro wished he’d thought to record it.

“Okay, done,” Lance  announced a moment later. “Ah, damn. Allura has my jacket.”

He sighed, tugging lightly at the sleeves of his t-shirt, then started folding the pajamas one of his sisters had likely brought him last night.

“Never trust a woman with a hoodie,” he advised them. “What they say is “the air conditioning is too high in here, can I borrow this.” What they mean is “you’ll never see this again, it’s mine now.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem for us,” Shiro answered lightly. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Keith, who was so thrown off over Lance changing he nearly got hit in the face. “Hey, do me a favor…since we’re waiting for his discharge anyway, go put gas in the car.”

“Ugh, why me?”

“Because I pay for our internet.”

Keith threw his arms up like he was annoyed, but he didn’t make any counterarguments. In fact, he left the room a little too willingly, probably glad to have an excuse to regain his composure.

When he was gone, Shiro got up and closed the door again. He leaned back against it, frowning at Lance. The boy’s smile was gone now, and he looked so very tired. He was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for, and probably knew there was no point in keeping up his pretense around someone who would see through it.

“People are worried about you, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lance said dejectedly. He sank down to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling up one leg and wrapping his arms around it. “I can’t help that, though.”

“You know why I went on the Kerberos mission,” Shiro said gently. “You know I was sick, that I didn’t expect to be alive this long.”

“Yeah, I know that too.”

“You don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to, Lance,” Shiro assured him. “I respect your right to keep whatever is going on to yourself, and I completely understand why you would choose to.”

He pushed away from the door and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. He was still fairly young himself and he’d never pictured himself being a parent, but after all they’d been through together these kids felt like they were his own.

“I just want to make sure you know that if you need to talk, I’m here. Not as a commanding officer or a former team leader, just as a friend.”

Lance let his head fall forward to rest against his knee. He didn’t say anything for a long time, but Shiro didn’t interrupt the silence. People had to work through things in their own time, so he did nothing until the boy buried his face in his arms and his shoulders started to shake.

“Lance?” He put a hand tentatively on the younger pilot’s shoulder.

“It’s degenerative,” Lance said dully, his voice muffled by his arm. “It’s in my brain. They can’t fix it because they’ve never seen it before.”

He sniffled loudly and raised his head. His eyes were wet now and his voice was shaky, but he sounded more frustrated than anything else.

“Something happened in the last fight, something got broken in those last few minutes and it won’t heal. The longer I fly Red, the worse it gets,” he admitted. “Every few hours training is another night in the hospital. And I think she knows it, she’s pulling away from me.”

“Lance!” Shiro was trying not to be judgmental, but his concern got the better of him. He tried to rein himself in so Lance wouldn’t regret telling him the truth. “Why in the world would you keep trying to pilot? You should be staying on the ground…those Lions are designed to be charged by their Paladins, that’s all well and good if you’re healthy, but if you’re not…”

“Yeah, that’s also a thing I know,” Lance said glumly. “I just…I don’t want to let down the team.”

“Lance…if this is what happens when you just fly, what do you think will happen if you’re involved when they form Voltron? You might not be able to come back from that.”

“So?” Lance’s frustration melted into anger. He slid off the bed and started pacing, wiping at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Why did you keep flying when you were dying? Why did you go to Kerberos?

“Because it was important, right? It was what you had. Well this is what I have. I’m a pilot, Shiro, a combat pilot! This is what I am! If I lose this, if this gets taken away from me, then I’m not anything! I have things I need to protect, if I lose Red I’m completely useless!”

He stopped, covering his face with both hands.

“Without Red, I’m not special. I’m not a half-Galra Blade, or an Altean Alchemist, or a computer genius, or a top rate engineer. I’m just…a lousy, useless cargo pilot who talked his way into something bigger.”

Shiro got up and closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around Lance and hugging him tightly. Lance hugged him back, clinging like he was a lifeline.

“Know the kicker?” Lance asked, giving a dry, humorless laugh. “I’m only where I am because perfect Keith, Golden Boy Extraordinaire, got kicked out of the Garrison. Pidge and Hunk got stuck with a third-rate pilot because the qualified one got moved up in line, and I was what was left. If Keith had stayed in the program, I’d just be one more Galra slave corpse rotting in a mass grave right now.”

“Stop,” Shiro said firmly.

He pulled back, putting his hands on Lance’s shoulders and pushing him backward toward the chair. Once Lance was sitting Shiro crouched down in front of him, his hands resting on the chair arms.

“I want you to listen to me. And I mean listen, don’t brush me off. I care about you, I want you to hear and understand what I’m saying, all right?”

Lance looked like he might cry harder, but he was more resilient than a lot of them gave him credit for. He took a deep breath and nodded.

“Good. Number one, you are not nothing,” Shiro insisted. “You’ve never been nothing, you will never be nothing. This planet is a tiny speck in an offhand galaxy in an unfathomably huge universe. The Garrison is one single military training facility on that speck. The people who rated you during training used simulators that would be considered barely functional on other planets.

“One small group of people, using outdated software, on one military base, on one tiny speck, decided you were a third rate pilot. Know who disagrees with them? The rest of the goddamn universe, and every person in it who’s alive today because of you.”

He shifted forward to kneel, taking both of Lance’s hands in his own. The temperature really was a bit low in this room and the boy’s fingers were cold. His hands were also trembling, but that undoubtedly had more to do with his dilemma.

“Listen, Lance. A little more than a year ago, one of the most advanced, complex superweapons ever built in our reality was sitting in a cave. It was more than ten-thousand years old, linked to the very core of existence, and conscious enough to judge whoever approached it based on every fiber of their being.

“Golden Boy” Keith stood right in front of it, next to a computer genius. Next to a top rate engineer, and one of the Garrison’s top officer pilots. It was offered everything that you describe as being special, it had its pick of everything you think greatness is.

“And Blue. Chose.  _You_. She didn’t choose Keith. She didn’t choose Pidge, or Hunk, or me. She didn’t ignore us all and wait for somebody better to come along. She saw you for what you are, and she chose you.”

Lance’s eyes started to water again.  A tear escaped to run down his face but he remained solemn. He squeezed Shiro’s hands for comfort, and Shiro moved closer instead of pulling away. He softened a little, giving the younger man a faint smile.

“I understand everything that you’re going through right now,” he said softly. “You’re afraid of what might happen to you, you’re confused because you don’t know what to do. Giving up piloting one of the Lions is hard, I know that from experience…when the bond is gone it leaves you feeling empty for a while.

“But you’re more than Red. Over the last year, I’ve watched you go from a reckless cadet with an authority problem to…well, a top level soldier with a slightly smaller authority problem. And not just in your Lion. You’re one of the most promising sharpshooters I’ve ever seen, and your close combat skills are improving every day.”

Shiro let go with his left hand, bringing it up to rest lightly on Lance’s cheek. Just like with Keith, he wished he had the power to take away all the pain he was seeing right now.

“We all love you, Lance. We would rather have you alive and with us than hurting yourself when you have nothing to prove. I know this is your choice to make, but I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you to choose to give up piloting the Red Lion. There’s not a military in the world that wouldn’t be chomping at the bit to have you as an officer, but let me be the first to get my offer in. I would be honored to have you serve on the Atlas, we have three new MFEs and we could use you.”

Lance took a shaky breath, letting it out slowly. He looked down at Shiro and a small laugh escaped through the tears.

“Do you like, practice being all inspirational and shit? Because it’s scary sometimes how good you are at it.”

“Yes, I plan to run for President someday,” Shiro smiled. “Some people sing in the shower, I compose motivational speeches.”

Lance chuckled, and Shiro let him go. He got back to his feet, still smiling as he looked down at the confused young pilot.

“I mean it, Lance. You’re so much more than just the Red Lion’s Paladin. I’ll take you as an MFE pilot in a heartbeat, if you’re willing to make that choice.”

“Are you going to tell Keith?” Lance asked, his smile fading.

“No. This is yours. But you will have to tell him soon. All of them. I really will respect your choice if you decide to keep trying to fly Red, but we both know I’m going to have to act if you push this far enough for…things to get bad.”

“If I get suicidal,” Lance translated for him. “Or if something happens I can’t walk away from under my own power.”

Shiro nodded. Lance got to his feet, running both hands through his hair and sighing heavily. He poured some water from the pitcher and started cleaning up his face, washing away the telltale signs of tears.

“I don’t want to die,” he said softly. “I don’t like how much what I’m doing hurts. It’s just so hard to stop, I feel like I’m giving something up.”

“You feel like you’re leaving the team,” Shiro supplied. “But you wouldn’t be. You’d have me, Matt, Veronica, Sam, Coran. When the war gets hot again sure, we’ll probably separate from the Voltron pilots on occasion. But Hunk and Pidge are your best friends, they’re never going to just ditch you because you changed jobs. And Keith and Allura are leaders, they’ll understand and respect what you decide to do.”

Lance nodded again. He was mostly composed by now, smoothing back his hair and preparing to put his mask back on. A nurse came in to let him know everything was in order for his release, and Shiro waited with him while he got copies of all of his paperwork.

By the time they met Keith down in the lobby, Lance’s happy-go-lucky persona was firmly back in place. Shiro decided to have them drop him off at home and then let Keith borrow his car, sending them to go spend some time with Hunk, Pidge, and Matt.

They were all kids, regardless of the war that was raging across the universe, and they deserved a few precious hours to forget what they were going through and be kids.


	3. Chapter 3

####  _Current day_ :

Lance showed up late to training on Monday, forty-five minutes after the others were already suited up and in the air. Nobody had called him to check in, which was fine. He had been late so many times over the last six months that he’d asked them to just assume everything was okay unless someone in his family called them.

Today he was late on purpose. Not because he wanted to cause trouble, but because he knew he needed to sleep in. He woke up at a reasonable time instead of before dawn and ate breakfast with his family, then asked Rachel to give him a ride to the base.

Lance had a car of his own, sitting at home under a tarp. Nothing too fancy, just a deep blue coupe that his siblings had pooled together to buy him two months ago after things on Earth started to go back to normal. It was a missed-birthday present and a welcome home gift, and he appreciated it.

But he didn’t like driving it. No, that wasn’t true, he loved the idea of having his own car and speeding around in it. He just didn’t like riding alone. Veronica was an officer on the Atlas but she lived off base in a house she rented with Allura and Romelle, since they were always on the same schedule Lance often just hitched a ride with them.

On days when he was late, like today, he turned to Rachel. She lived at home with him and their parents, next door to their brother Luis and his wife Lisa. She usually split her time between part-time college classes and taking care of their children Nadia and Sylvio since both Luis and Lisa worked, but her day started late enough that she could drop him off.

As they pulled up to the hangars and parked, Lance loosened his protective hold from the little boy sitting on his lap. His nephew leaned out the open window to get a better look through the open hangar doors, at the massive red Lion settled inside the only occupied bay. The kid almost knocked the phone out of Lance’s hand.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Lance confirmed, reaching down to drop his seat back a little to avoid the small, kicking feet. “Should I come over to your office when I’m done?”

“No, take the day,” Shiro’s voice came over the line. “I’ll get the paperwork finished. Come see me at 0700 tomorrow and we’ll go from there. You’ll have to go through a mandatory training course, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem with it.”

“Yeah, I kind of expected as much,” Lance answered. He chewed his lip. “All right, I’ll be in first thing tomorrow. I’m going to talk to the others now.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

Lance hung up the phone and pulled his nephew back into the car, kissing the top of the little boy’s head and sending him into the back seat. He leaned over and gave Rachel a kiss on the cheek, like he always did to all of his family members, and climbed out of the car.

“I’ll text you when I’m done?” He asked. She nodded.

“Sure. I’ll be out running errands. If I finish before you message me I’ll come back here and wait.”

“Awesome. Thanks, Rach.”

Lance shut the car door, and watched as his nephew immediately climbed back over the seat to get into the front. He kicked his sleeping sister in the head hard enough to make Lance wince, but the little girl barely noticed. Lance watched the car until it made the turn to disappear back around the hangars, then made his way inside alone. He carried a gym bag with him, with his bayard and Paladin uniform, but remained dressed in his casual clothes.

“Good morning, Red,” he greeted the ship affectionately, patting one of her great metal claws. “I know you’re probably going to be really broken up about it, but we’re not flying today. I just want to visit. Spend a little time with you.”

He jumped when she suddenly moved, her great body shifting down into a lying position. Her mouth opened, granting access to her cockpit, but he could hear that none of her main systems were turning on. She wasn’t readying for normal operation like usual.

“You know, don’t you?” He asked, lightly touching the red metal of her muzzle. “That I’m here to say good bye.”

He climbed up into the cockpit and dropped into his seat, looking around at the dark and lifeless control panel. Maybe it was him being sentimental, but without all the flashing lights and red overlays constantly sparring for his attention he almost felt more connected to Red herself.

“You’re a good girl,” Lance said softly, resting his hands on the controls. “The best girl. I know you have a temper and some people say you’re not reliable, but that’s not true. You’re not just some mindless robot, are you? You have standards. And when people are being dumb and not meeting your standards, they need to be told they’re dumb. I get you.”

He smiled, petting the top of her bayard port as if he were stroking a real cat.

“They’ll get you a new pilot,” he promised. “Not just whatever human is available, either. If nobody here is good enough they’ll put out a call, and you? You’re amazing. Pilots from all over the universe will be falling all over themselves just to get a look at you. The very best, from every corner of every galaxy. So don’t you settle, you understand? You’re worth perfection, so don’t you dare accept anything less.”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair, resting his hands in his lap and putting one leg up on his controls. He let his eyes trail around the cockpit, picking up little details he’d never even realized were familiar before. The little impact dent on the left wall, the scratches on the right side of the floor from something being dragged across it at some point. A smudge of what was probably some kind of ink on the side of the chair, a lost paperclip Keith had hooked onto that lever handle and Lance had never bothered to remove.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the chair, getting a feel for his Lion for one last time before she wasn’t his anymore.

* * * * * * * * * *

####  _Six months ago:_

They were just about ready to go. The land rover was fueled and the MFEs were all stocked with faunatonium, zero hour was ticking down. He was just making sure there was nothing in the front seat that would stop him from tucking and rolling when it came time to make a quick switch from rover to Lion.

“Lance?”

He looked down from where he was standing to find Allura there, suited up and ready to go. Even though he knew he had absolutely nothing to do with it, Lance couldn’t help but feel a small wave of pride at how far she’d come since they’d met. Their princess didn’t need saving, she was a warrior and she was going to help them beat the ever-loving snot out of these Galra invaders.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Allura smiled at him, and he had a bit of a brain glitch. Hunk gave him knowing grins on inside jokes all the time and Pidge cheesed out at the drop of a hat. Keith was pretty much the only person on the team who gave him sincere smiles—as long as nobody was looking and it didn’t ruin his reputation. Allura had given him fond looks here and there after they’d all nearly died, but this was the first time she’d really approached him and smiled like that. The kind of smile that just made him feel good.

“I just wanted to say, be safe out there.”

“Yeah, you too.” Lance smiled back, feeling a tingle of warmth wash over him. She really was beautiful, he didn’t think there was anyone in the galaxy who wouldn’t be happy to be on the receiving end of her smile.

She ducked her head and turned away, jogging over to the MFE she was about to climb into. Lance watched her go, still feeling those wisps of pride. There was nobody who deserved to take Blue more than Allura.

“Ooh, I think the princess likes you back,” Veronica teased, catching him by surprise. He hadn’t even heard her come up behind him.

“It’s not like that!” He exclaimed, flustered. “Allura cares about everybody, she’s just an awesome person like that!”

“Uh huh.”

“Ugh, let’s just go.”

Veronica laughed and headed around to the driver side of the rover. Lance turned back to the MFEs, watching their passengers climb aboard. Standing up as tall as he could, he waved both arms for attention and flashed them a thumbs up. Hunk saw him first and broke out into a wide grin, giving him a salute. Pidge laughed and shot him finger guns.

Keith didn’t even glance in his direction. He was already seated in the MFE, eyes straight ahead and completely focused on the mission.

Lance climbed into the rover next to Veronica. As the jets began to power up behind them, she started the vehicle up and peeled toward the exit in the particle barrier. Lance’s grip on his seat tightened as they sped toward it, and even though he knew a section of the barrier would open for them at the last second he still squeezed his eyes shut until they were safely through. Once they were out on the open road, surrounded by the emptiness of the drab New Mexico desert, he let his mind wander while his sister focused on driving.

He felt unsettled. Not necessarily about the mission, they’d run long shots like this before. The stakes were high, yes, but Lance had long since learned how to minimize his nervousness and focus on his job. There was just something sitting there, a weird, empty kind of feeling, like he’d forgotten something important.

It didn’t help that Veronica was here. It was one thing to have the other Paladins transported by the MFE pilots, they were loaded down with faunatonium for a fast air getaway if necessary. Here, in the rover, there was no defensive fallback. He hated to risk any more people than necessary, especially one of his sisters.

“You know, you didn’t have to come out here,” he piped up, even though he knew it was too late to change anything. “A map would’ve been just fine.”

“First of all, that’s very sweet, but shut up,” Veronica answered with a little smile. “I’ve been going on these missions for months, nobody knows the terrain better than me.”

Months. His big sister, who should have been finishing up her college degree, had been spending months running reconnaissance in Galra-occupied territory in a war that never should have gotten this far. Things weren’t supposed to be like this, they were supposed to have stopped this from happening.

But they’d failed. And now here he was in the middle of the desert with someone he loved more than his own life, and both of them could end up dead before the end of the day.

Lance took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to focus on the Red Lion, that empty feeling coming back. It was sort of hollow, running up through his chest so far he could feel it in his throat.

That was mostly it, the fact that they could all die today. He had made his peace with it and put it out of his mind, but it kept creeping back in. He didn’t know how he would feel if one of the others died, or if he saw death coming for him.

 _Red, I need you_ , he reached out, trying to focus on the bond with his Lion. He had called her before, he knew how this worked. _It’s go time. This might be our last fight, we’ve got to make it a good one_.

The last fight. For good or for ill, some people wouldn’t be coming home.

Unbidden, the events of the day unfolded in his head. Hugging his parents, kissing his niece and nephew, shaking his brothers’ hands. Saluting Shiro and Coran, poking fun at Romelle, sneaking a MilkBone to Kosmo.

Wishing the MFE pilots luck, except James Griffin who he’d flipped off instead. Receiving well wishes from Sam and Colleen Holt, and a nod of approval from Iverson.

A salute from Hunk. Finger guns from Pidge. A smile from Allura.

Nothing from Keith.

That ache in his throat sharpened, and he knew that was what was missing. He had said some kind of goodbye to everyone except Keith. It was a stupid thing to be so worked up about, something that didn’t even matter, but it made him feel like his farewells were incomplete.

He tightened his grip on his seat and clenched his teeth.

 _Come on, Red_. He was starting to get desperate. His mind was all over the place, it was so hard to get a grip on that thin, fraying little ribbon that connected him to his Lion. She was so far away and he was so confused, he just couldn’t make it click. _I can do this. We can do this. I know you’re far away and I’m doing a horrible job, but please. You have to hear me_.

Veronica hit a dip in the terrain and the rover jumped, just enough make Lance’s eyes snap open. She glanced over at him apologetically.

“Sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? You look kind of dazed.”

“Yeah. No. I mean…I’m fine. I’m just…ugh! I’m fine!” He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut again, trying to ignore that nagging, infuriating feeling of an important task left unfinished.

_God, I wish Veronica had just stayed back at the stupid Garrison._

Was it really so hard to just turn around and look at your team one last time before everyone flew off into oblivion? What kind of leader didn’t understand that kind of human connection made all the difference? He didn’t have to say anything, he didn’t have to salute. He could have just acknowledged them, just smiled, it wouldn’t have killed him.

The nagging emptiness solidified all at once into a nauseous feeling. Lance wasn’t the kind of person who had epiphanies, puzzling through his inner turmoil and making solid breakthroughs. All he had was his confusion and some very strong feelings he didn’t really understand.

All Keith had to do was smile. Allura had done it, it wasn’t hard. Lance knew it wasn’t hard because Keith had smiled at him before. In fact, he’d given Lance the same smile when they’d spoken in his bedroom as Allura had given him right before they’d all headed out today.

Keith…had smiled at him before…the same way Allura had smiled at him today.

The same smile, that gave him the same warm feeling. The same softness, that gave him the same twinge of happiness. The same—

Lance’s eyes snapped open when the hair stood up on the back of his neck. He knew subconsciously that the shot was coming from the static on the air, just a split second before the sound of the laser going off reached his ears.

He made a quick grab for the steering wheel even though he knew it was useless, but Veronica saw him and read his motive with the sharply honed instincts of a driver familiar with war. She beat him to the punch and swerved the rover to the right just as the ground where they would have been exploded, and the air became filled with lasershot.

“We’ve been spotted!” He yelled to Shiro and Sam over the radio before turning to his sister. “Watch out, okay! Be careful!”

“I know!” Veronica snarled. She swerved around a rock outcropping, using it to shield them from a strike that made it explode and sent chunks of stone and dust everywhere. Lance held on tightly as she gunned the engine and started pulling serpentines with the grim determination of an Indy 500 driver.

“Lance, where are you?” Shiro’s voice came over the radio. “Can you hear me?”

“Ye-Whoa!” Lance screeched as a strike grazed the side of the rover, taking out one of the mirrors. Spinning around in his seat, he saw two strikers lining up to take simultaneous shots at them. “Veronica! Look out!”

She swerved again, but there was nothing else she could do. The dual rain of laserfire made a direct hit unavoidable, and he felt the vehicle jerk as one of the back tires went. Veronica tried to keep control of the rover, but another shot hit the ground underneath the back and the resulting explosion flipped the rover over the edge of the ravine they were careening along the edge of.

The world did somersaults, the air filled with the sounds of explosions and shrieking metal. Lance screamed, reaching wildly for Veronica in the chaos but unable to find her. His head hit something, hard, and everything went black.

The noise condensed into a ringing, a high-pitched buzz in his ears that stabbed deeply into his brain. For a moment he couldn’t remember where it was coming from, why everything was so dark. He opened his eyes slowly, finding the rocky, sandy world around him fuzzy and out of focus.

“Lance?”

The voice hit a switch that made him tense up. It was dripping with anger he’d heard before and knew was no joke, a tone that made it clear he had to respond.

“Lance! Come in!”

A direct order. Lance still wasn’t clear on everything that was going on, but he knew he had to answer that command. He had to get his mouth and his brain back on the same page, had to get everything working.

He pushed himself up off the ground, awash in a wave of dizziness. The ringing started to recede and his vision started to clear, and the reality of the situation hit him.

“Veronica?” He looked around wildly, wincing at the ungodly pain that shot through his torso. Something was wrong, there was some pretty bad damage there. But that didn’t matter right now, all that mattered was that, as he looked around, he spotted his sister lying still a few yards away from the burning rover. “Veronica!”

He stumbled down the small incline to her, sliding to his knees at her side. He already knew he couldn’t lift her, the pain in his left arm told him that even if it wasn’t already broken it wouldn’t take much to break it. Her eyes were open and unfocused, but as he lifted her head she seemed to regain a little bit of clarity.

“Lance?”

“Veronica!” He breathed in relief. “You’re okay!”

It was a premature statement. One of the strikers did a fly-by, shooting up the ground around them and marking their position. Drones who had already been on their way toward the smoke filtering up from the burning rover took up offensive positions and started firing, making it impossible to dive for cover.

Lance had his bayard and shield. He could deflect enough laserfire and get off enough shots to cover himself until he was behind the remains of the rover, maybe try to formulate a plan from there. They were close to their mark, the terrain could possibly be used to slight advantage if he was moving alone and stayed low.

But he would not leave Veronica behind.

Cursing, he activated his shield and planted it in the dirt in front of him. It deflected the more direct shots and gave him time to activate his bayard, even though his adrenaline rush was making him clumsy and hurting his coordination. The shots he fired off relied on muscle memory, the habitual motions of line-up-and-shoot that his hands and eyes had established over months of practice. The drones and sentries went down, one after another, giving him hope that perhaps he could clear the first wave and get his sister out of direct fire.

A striker dropped down into his field of vision suddenly, firing off a shot that filled the air with dust and debris and blocked him from setting his sights on any more attacking drones. Lance coughed as the air became dry, launching himself out from behind the shield and leaving it behind to protect Veronica. He ran forward through the fog of sand, sliding to his knees out in open air and lining up the striker in his sights.

They had weaknesses. He had blown these things up before while in his Lion, they were just as prone to structural damage as any other aircraft. He started firing, hoping to hit the opening in the hull where the lasers were fired from, intending to cause a backlash explosion that would take the striker down.

It only needed one hit, just one well-placed strike that would cause a domino effect through the whole fighter. Lance’s first shot went wide, his second was closer. The third was almost there, the fourth…

The striker jerked to the left, his shot went wide. The distance between them closed too much, he was a ranged fighter and it was too close for him to effectively take aim. Every shot he fired missed the mark, bouncing harmlessly off the striker’s hull.

Lance watched the ship bear down on him, lowering his gun. He had always expected to feel scared before he died, but he didn’t. He felt…resigned. It shouldn’t have ended this way, but this was how it was going to go. More than anything, he felt sadness.

 _Veronica_ , he thought, closing his eyes. _I am so, so sorry._

* * * * * * * *

####  _Current day:_

Lance opened his eyes and looked around the darkened cockpit. He had done a very good job of not reflecting on the Battle of the Last Stand so far and he wasn’t interested in reflecting on it now. That day was a jumble of confusion and pain on so many different levels, and he just wasn’t ready yet to pick through it for revelations.

He ran a hand through his hair and then leaned down to pull the helmet out of the gym bag. Lance tried to ignore, as he slid it down over his head, that this was the last time he would wear it. As he switched on the comm unit, the chatter of the other Paladins came in over his radio.

“Hunk, you’re a little too high for the formation,” Keith’s voice came over the line, firm but relaxed. He still had some problems with people, but he was starting to learn how to talk to them like they were human beings. At least, the members of his team. “Allura, you’re a little too low, edge up. We went down so fast in that last simulation because you’re not flanking close enough, you’re leaving space open for strikers to get through and break you off. You’re all doing great otherwise, so keep up the good work. Let’s come back to the starting point and we’ll run through it again.”

Lance rested his chin on one hand and listened. He couldn’t see the simulation overlay but he guessed it was probably Galra ships over the nearby desert map. He listened to Pidge squawk out readings and statistics, and Hunk making smartass commentary. Allura had loosened up a lot since they’d met…here and there he heard a minor swear slip out in English, and Pidge and Hunk would start roasting her for it. Keith prodded them and kept them on task, more serious than the rest of them as always. Still, he sounded a little gentler than he once would have, just a touch more friendly. Lance relaxed inside of Red, listening to his friends in silence. Then it happened.

“Allura, you’re drifting low again. Edge up. Wait, not so fast! There’s a striker coming up on your six, you’re going to hit—“

He was cut off by a loud clang of metal, the simulated sounds of the Blue Lion slamming into a striker that wasn’t actually there.

“Oh _fuck me!_ ” Allura shouted, followed by the sounds of her angrily shifting her controls.

Everyone went quiet for a few seconds before Keith answered softly.

“Sorry, you’re not flexible enough for me.”

Keith Kogane making an inappropriate joke was so unexpected that Lance burst out laughing in the shocked silence that followed.

“Hey!” Hunk exclaimed. “I think we have an eavesdropper!”

“Oh my God,” Allura groaned. “I didn’t say that. None of you heard me say that. Especially you, Lance.”

“I thought I muted my mic!” Keith yelled in a panic over the howls of laughter coming from Hunk, Pidge, and Lance. “Okay, none of you heard any part of that exchange, it’s officially stricken from the record!”

“You’re not allowed to hang around with Matt anymore,” Pidge told Allura as she finally got her giggles under control. “Your mouth’s been going downhill since you met. Hey Lance, are you going to join the chaos today?”

“Not today, short stuff,” Lance smiled. “I just came by to see you guys. Hey, Team Leader…when you have a time for a break in the drills, can I talk to you?”

“Sure.” Keith sounded relieved for an excuse to put his mic mistake behind him and focus on something else. “Okay guys, break off and head back to the hangars. Hunk, Pidge, wash Allura’s mouth out with some soap when we land.”

Allura groaned in embarrassment, and Hunk and Pidge started poking fun at her again. Lance turned off his comm unit, dropping the cockpit back into silence.

He got up and took off his helmet, putting it back in the gym bag and leaving the whole thing on the seat. Climbing down out of the Lion, he stopped on her paw and stretched up to touch her face.

“Goodbye, girl,” he said fondly. “You give ‘em hell for me.”

Lance jumped down to the floor of the hangar, and heard Red’s mouth close behind him. He looked up to see her rise again, moving up into a sitting position before going still.

And that was it. It was over.

Shoving his hands in his jean pockets, he made his way out onto the tarmac to watch the airborne dots in the distance grow closer and come into focus. It was windy today and he still hadn’t gotten his jacket back from Allura, but he’d been too lazy to dig another one out of his closet.

The wind whipped up a little more as the Lions landed, leaving him trying to smooth down his hair as the four remaining Paladins disembarked and came to meet him.

“How are you?” Pidge asked, jumping up to grab him around the neck and hang off of him. She was starting to grow, finally, but he could still hold her up high enough that her feet didn’t touch the ground.

“I’m okay,” he said honestly, smiling. “I feel better today than I have in a long time.”

“No armor,” Hunk noted. “So you’re not even going to run simulations from the ground with us?”

“No, sorry,” he shook his head, letting Pidge down. “I’m just here to talk to Keith.”

He looked over at the older boy, who was standing back from the others. His arms were crossed, but Lance suspected they were just permanently wired that way so he never had to think about what to do with his hands.

“Do you have some time?”

“Of course.” Keith took off his helmet and gave the others a vaguely “scram” motion. “You guys can take an early lunch. I’ll call everyone back when we’re ready to start again.”

The others looked between Lance and Keith with curiosity clear on their faces. But they did as they were told and filtered off, leaving them alone. Keith nodded toward the nearby building and Lance followed him inside, across the lobby and up the stairs to the second floor.

“I can’t believe they gave you your own office,” Lance mused. “Especially since I’ve never seen you in it.”

“Voltron is listed as its own unit,” Keith answered with a shrug. “When they made me an officer they gave me an office.”

They reached a door with a plate labeled “LIEUTENANT KOGANE,” where Keith stopped to fish a lanyard he was wearing up out of his armor. He fumbled with it a bit, swiping the card at the end of it the wrong way twice before the door clicked open to admit them.

Lance wasn’t really surprised to find the room empty and devoid of any character. It had a desk with a computer that looked barely touched, some chairs, and a file folder sitting on top of a cabinet. There wasn’t even a plant, probably because Keith only came in here when he absolutely had to. In times of active warfare the Lions would be stationed on the Atlas and mostly under joint command with Shiro, and Keith preferred to handle his time in command from his Lion.

“If it wasn’t labeled, I wouldn’t even know it belonged to anybody,” Lance gestured to the room. “Come on, man…you’re a Lieutenant of an advanced space force. Put up a poster or something. Personalize the place.”

“I keep my personal stuff at home,” Keith answered, looking around the room. “It’s not like I’m going to be in this office forever. Why make changes I have to fix when I leave?”

Lance heaved a sigh and took out his wallet. He picked through the pictures he had inside until he found one of all five of them with Shiro and Coran in the background, unfolding it and taking it over to the cork board on the wall. He pinned it up in the center, one sad, tiny photo in a big empty room. But it was a start.

“I’m going to let you borrow this,” he told Keith. “Just until you grow a sense of style and buy some cushions or something, then I want it back.”

Keith rolled his eyes and started to unclip his armor. He laid it out on the wide window sill behind the desk with such annoying neatness, the man had been born to be a soldier. Lance gave him a moment to get more comfortable, poking around what was in the office.

“Don’t touch that,” Keith warned when Lance reached the cabinet with the file folder. “Personnel files are classified.”

“Oh. Ours?” Lance asked curiously.

“Yours.”

Keith pulled his jeans on over his under-armor and tugged on his boots, then finally turned back to Lance with his arms crossed. His face was unreadable, which Lance absolutely hated. He responded best to people who actually emoted, Keith brought him to a screeching halt every time that blank exterior went up.

“I came in this morning to a request to write up a transfer,” Keith finally broke the uncomfortable silence. “Lance McClain, to be assigned to the IGF-Atlas upon confirmation. Since you’re here wanting to talk to me, out of uniform, I’m assuming when I check my email I’ll have confirmation that you’re Shiro’s now.”

Keith spoke slower than usual. He kept his eyes on the empty surface of the desk and halted longer than necessary between sentences. Lance could tell he was upset but he wasn’t sure in what way, whether he was angry or sad or just annoyed that he had to fill out paperwork.

Lance ran his hands through his hair and moved to the middle of the room, dropping down to sit cross-legged on the floor. He put his face in his hands for a minute, fighting down the urge to cry, and looked up again once he’d regained his composure.

“Can you sit down?” He asked. “Yes, I want to talk to you about the transfer. But I don’t want to talk to you as a Lieutenant or as the leader, okay? I want to talk to you as my friend.”

Keith pulled his eyes away from the desk to look at the floor, and Lance thought he was going to tell him to shove it. But his arms dropped wearily from their defensive posture and he came over to sit next to him, kicking one of the chairs out of the way to make space.

“What’s going on, Lance?” He almost seemed…dejected. “You’re in and out of the hospital, you won’t tell anyone what’s wrong, you barely talk to any of us anymore, and now I’m getting a request to transfer you to the Atlas? From Shiro, no less, not even directly from you? And even then, I get it through my official email. Not even to my face over the weekend.”

Lance wasn’t sure, but he thought Keith sounded hurt. And if he was being honest with himself, Keith had every right to feel that way. Lance knew he should have manned up instead of letting Shiro shield him from having a difficult conversation sooner.

“Look, if it’s something we did, if we pushed you too hard before you were ready, I’m sorry,” Keith kept going before Lance had a chance to respond. “I know how close you came to dying. I know you’re more human than I am and things like that affect you more. I know it’s a traumatizing thing and I’m really trying to give you space, so if I’m just not giving you enough I can adjust.”

“Keith, I—“

“You can come in on afternoons and run simulation drills from the ground, and maybe only fly once a week. Whatever it takes to give you the time to get better. Even the doctors said you were back on your feet faster than you should have been, those two extra weeks you didn’t take in the beginning are probably just compounding now. I know I pushed you really hard when you got back and I know I get really intense when I’m running training, but things don’t have to be so tough.”

“Keith,” Lance tried to interrupt again, but Keith just raised his voice. He was bound and determined to get out every bit of this run-on rambling he’d probably been anxiously practicing in his head all morning. He wouldn’t even look at Lance, his face turned in a frown and his gaze fixed on the carpet in front of them.

“I know I’m not good at this, I focus too much on myself because I still get stuck in Loner mode sometimes. But I’m trying to work better with a team, I really am. And I can’t do this without my right hand man, because if you’re not here the team isn’t whole. _I’m_ not a leader without my backup, whatever I did that’s pushing you away, I’m sorry. Tell me what I did and I’ll fix it.”

“Keith,” Lance let out a heavy breath. “Shut your quiznak already.”

It was probably the most verbose Lance had ever seen Keith be outside of their talk back in the Castle of Lions. His face was still hard to read but now Lance could tell it was on purpose. He didn’t want to let his guard down until he knew what kind of response he would get.

“I still don’t think you’re using that word right,” Keith murmured.

“It’s the spirit if not the letter,” Lance answered. “You didn’t do anything wrong, none of you did. You’re not pushing me away. Everyone’s been more supportive than I deserve, honestly. Especially you. You’ve already been bending over backwards to cater to me and you’re usually the first one to visit me when I’m admitted. There’s literally nothing you could’ve done over the last six months to be a better friend, there’s nothing for you to fix.”

Here was the hard part. It was hard because he was about to break the news to somebody who really wouldn’t like it. But it was also hard because he was about to say it out loud and make it real. This was the moment when his life was going to change, and he was terrified about it.

“I’m not going to get better, not while I’m flying with Voltron. Every time I plug into Red, I damage my brain.”

“What?” Keith’s head swiveled up to look at him.

“At first I thought it was just something that would go away, but it’s getting worse with time,” Lance continued. He felt heavy as the full truth came out and everything he was hiding was brought to light. “I haven’t been able to land that Lion myself in three months. All those times I walked away under my own power? I blacked out halfway through and Red brought me down. I usually woke up by the time the rest of you landed to check on me. But a lot of the time it doesn’t really hit until hours later, when I have to go to the ER at night and end up in a room.”

“Lance!” Keith’s voice had such a bite to it he probably could’ve drawn blood with words. He pulled away, getting to his feet and backing away. He looked genuinely horrified, the first time Lance had seen the Loner mask drop completely.

“I know I should’ve told you,” Lance groaned. “But I didn’t want to let everyone down—”

“I’ve been ordering you into that Lion four times a week, at least, for five months!” Keith didn’t yell a lot, he usually preferred scalding with an acidic tone, but his voice was definitely starting to creep up there now. “When the hell were you going to tell me I was _killing you_?”

Lance stopped trying to talk, stunned into silence. He had never seen this kind of raw emotion coming from Keith, ever. And it didn’t look like Keith knew how to handle letting this level of emotion out, his hands were starting to shake as he rubbed his face.

“Whoa, back up. Calm down,” Lance got to his feet. “I’m not dying. That’s why I’m doing this, that’s what the transfer is for. I want to keep piloting Red, more than anything, that’s why I kept trying. You weren’t forcing me into anything, I kept pushing myself because I’m an idiot. The doctors think that once I’m away from all that quintessence always running through me, I’ll be fine.”

He approached Keith carefully, gingerly putting his hands on the other boy’s shoulders. Slowly, just in case too much physical contact made him bolt or something.

“I’m transferring to train as an MFE pilot. Maybe finish all the classes I missed while we were gone, train to be an officer, I don’t know. But I’m not… _going_ anywhere. When it’s time to go back to the war, you guys will be stationed on the Atlas and I’ll be backing you up in a fighter. Between now and then, I’m still going to be on this base every day. I’ll be right on the other side, corralling new cadets with Shiro and Coran and Veronica. Nothing’s going to stop me from spending the next God only knows how many years yelling at you for having terrible ideas.”

For a few seconds, Keith looked at him so mournfully he almost thought he was seeing things. Then it was gone, the calm expression was slipping back into place, and he was the unaffected Paladin leader again.

“I just wish you’d told me sooner,” he shook Lance’s hands off of him, sidestepping him and moving to put the desk between them. It was like he had a quota for emotion and once he’d used it up he turned everything off and gave himself as much physical distance as he could. It drove Lance bananas. “We could’ve mitigated some of the damage. Now you’re still going to have to heal up, and we have to find another pilot.”

“And you have to find a good one,” Lance added. He matched Keith’s shift, unwilling to be the moron standing here looking sad while Mr. Mechanical shut down and withdrew. “Red deserves it.”

“Uh huh.” From almost warm to ice cold. Keith picked up the file from the cabinet and opened it up, pulling a pen out of the drawer and signing a page inside with quick, forceful strokes. “I’ll put out an announcement first thing in the morning. There, you’re transferred.”

He pulled a large yellow envelope out of his drawer and slid the file into it, sealing it up and quickly addressing it over to Shiro. Without another word he grabbed his jacket and walked out of the office, leaving Lance jogging to follow.

At the end of the hallway was the receptionist desk, as well as a slot in the wall that led to the mail room. Keith shoved the paperwork through the opening and kept walking, and Lance got the impression their conversation was over. He stopped when Keith reached the doors to head outside.

“You know, I’m glad I didn’t tell you sooner. You’re kind of a dick when your feelings are hurt.”

“My feelings are _not_ hurt,” Keith hit the door open with his hip and stepped out, but didn’t let it close behind him. He held it open with one hand so he could give Lance a dirty look.

Lance glared right back at him. He stalked out the door and gave Keith a hard shove backward, kicking the door shut behind them. When they were outside of the building, and alone, he wrapped his arms around Keith and pulled him close in a tight hug.

For a few heartbeats, there was no change. Keith remained stiff and unyielding but he didn’t pull away, and slowly, he began to relax. He made no move to return the hug, but he let his head fall forward against Lance’s shoulder.

“Change sucks,” he mumbled.

“You sound so old,” Lance snorted. He held onto him for another breath before letting him go, stepping back to give him some space. “We need to hang out.”

“Huh?”

“Outside of Voltron, outside of the hospital,” Lance clarified. “You and me are a team, remember? So let’s practice being a team. Me and you, without the others. How about a movie next weekend?”

“Oh. I don’t-“

“You don’t watch movies, I know,” Lance cut him off. “You sharpen your knives and stare at the wall for entertainment. We’re going to go to a movie. Buy popcorn, yell at the screen, pretend we’re normal people. We both need a break, something that’s not related to fighting or the war. I haven’t seen you smile since…”

 _Since I saw it reflected on Allura’s face,_ the thought bubbled up. Lance shoved it back down. He still wasn’t ready or interested in introspection.

“Since too long,” he finished lamely.

“Okay.” Keith agreed far easier than Lance thought he would, but he was still visibly uncomfortable with the idea of going out and socializing. “Should I see if Shiro will let me borrow his car? You probably shouldn’t be on my bike if you’re blacking out.”

“I have a car, I’ll pick you up,” Lance waved that question off. “I’ll check the listings and let you know what the movie times are, we’ll pick something specific during the week.”

Keith looked surprised at the news that Lance actually had a car and didn’t need to be bumming rides off everyone like he did, but he didn’t comment. Instead he looked in the direction of the hangars, then turned back to Lance and opened the jacket in his hands. He raised it up, holding it out so it was easier to put on.

“You keep rubbing your arms,” he said in response to Lance’s questioning look. “You should’ve worn a long-sleeve shirt.”

“I don’t think I own any.” Lance grinned a little as he took the familiar old red jacket, pulling it on. He and Keith headed toward the hangars, and Lance started laughing.

“What?” Keith looked over at him, doing that weirdly innocent eyebrow quirk he did when he was confused. “What’s so funny?”

“This jacket,” Lance grinned, tugging at the bottom hem. “I always knew there was something weird about this crop-top-looking thing and know I know what it is. This is a girls’ jacket.”

“Hey, you try being Korean and shopping for men’s clothes here.”

“Yeah, but your mom’s pretty tall,” Lance pointed out. “And you’re catching up, maybe it’s time to buy a new one.”

“I got taller, not wider,” Keith defended. “It still fits.”

Lance’s phone started to ring then, as they reached the tarmac where the other Paladins were hanging out. He looked at it, at Rachel’s phone number calling in, then looked up at the group, then looked at Keith.

“It’s okay if you have to go,” Keith said quietly. “I’ll talk to them for you.”

Lance nodded thankfully and answered the phone as the others came over. Rachel was just driving up on the tarmac, calling ahead to see if he was ready to go. He told her to come around and hung up.

“Okay, well,” he said awkwardly as her car rolled up. “Nice to see everybody. I will, uh, talk to you all tomorrow.”

He hated to drop this on Keith, just like he hated that he’d dropped it on Shiro, but he didn’t think he had it in him to go through the whole thing again. Not today. He started to fidget, giving the others a brief wave. Then, completely on uncomfortable autopilot, he leaned over and gave Keith a kiss on the cheek like he always did with his brothers and sisters.

Lance was back in the car and closing the door before what he’d done hit him.

“Did I just…?”

“Literally kiss your ex-commanding officer goodbye?” Rachel asked, bursting out laughing. “Yeah, that’s a thing you just did.”

“Hit the gas,” Lance hissed, sinking down in the passenger seat. _”Rachel, hit the freaking gas!_ ”

Rachel was laughing so hard she had started to cry, but she started the car up and pulled away. Lance remained slinked down in the passenger seat with his hands over his face, leaving behind four very stunned and confused ex-teammates.


	4. Chapter 4

####  _Current day:_  

“Sit.”

Keith stood in the living room of the apartment, holding a treat out to Kosmo at snout level. The wolf cocked his head to the side and tried to take it, but Keith pulled it back.

“No,” he said firmly. “You have to follow the command first.”

He offered the treat again, and ordered Kosmo to sit. Kosmo cocked his head the other way, and moved to grab the treat again.

“No!” Keith reprimanded. “You have to sit first! Sit!”

It was a well documented fact that Kosmo did whatever Kosmo wanted to do, and that this was an exercise in futility. But he’d still spent an entire afternoon trying to teach the wolf to respond, and he had nothing to show for it except a half-empty box of treats after repeatedly giving in and letting Kosmo have them without performing the task.

It wasn’t really a mission to get Kosmo to learn commands, more of something to do to keep him busy so he didn’t have to think. He didn’t want to think about the upcoming war, he didn’t want to think about the mistakes he’d made as a leader in the past, he didn’t want to think about Lance transferring over to the Atlas, and he didn’t want to think about the episode at the hangars.

Keith wasn’t good with words, he was a person of actions. So he read actions, and he liked to think he read them well. Well enough to know that Lance kissing him on the cheek was an automatic gesture, one he’d seen the other pilot perform regularly with close friends and family. There was nothing else coded in it, nothing romantic or flirty or teasing.

If anything, Keith found the little slip-up more flattering for just that reason. It was…nice, knowing Lance felt like they were close enough that he would unconsciously treat him like family when not paying attention.

Frustrating, sure, because he didn’t want to be thought of as family. Family-zoned was like six levels deeper than friend-zoned, he didn’t think there was ever any coming back from that.

Either way, the other Paladins had been impossible after the display. Followed by devastated when he broke the news to them about Lance’s transfer, and the details of his condition. He gave them all orders that they weren’t to contact Lance until he was ready to talk to them about it, then let everyone have the afternoon off.

Mostly so he could come home and have his own nervous breakdown in peace and quiet.

“Sit.”

Kosmo did not sit, but he still reached for the treat. Keith pulled it back out of reach, holding it out behind him.

“No. Sit first.”

Kosmo looked at him, then there was a pop and he disappeared. He reappeared behind Keith, stealing the treat out of his hand before popping back over to stand in front of him. Then he wagged his tail expectantly for another snack.

“That is not how this works, you little cheat!” Keith exclaimed. He hugged the box back against his chest so Kosmo couldn’t pop over somewhere else and snatch it out of his hand. “There’s a chain of command, you’re not in charge!”

Kosmo cocked his head to the side again, then finally sat.

“Okay, maybe you are in charge a little,” Keith relented, grudgingly.

He pulled a handful of the small, bone-shaped treats out of the box and started tossing them to Kosmo one by one. Outside he could hear rain beginning to pelt the windows, as the autumn storm the weatherman had called for rolled in for the evening. When Kosmo was flopped down in the middle of the rug, surrounded by little treats he’d caught and dropped, Keith gave him a break to eat all his snacks.

He looked down at the little bones in his hand suspiciously.

“What’s even in these?” He asked the wolf, flipping the box over to read the ingredients. “You suck them down like they’re made of freaking magic.”

He held up one of the little bones. There was nothing special about it, it was just some kind of crunchy biscuit that came in three different colors. The box said they were beef flavored but they were pretty much odorless, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why Kosmo went so crazy over them. Out of morbid curiosity, Keith popped one into his mouth.

He chewed twice and made a face, looking down at the happy wolf crunching away on the floor.

“You disgust me,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

The lock on the front door clicked and the knob started to turn, and Keith looked around wildly. He was in the middle of the living room with no quick way to escape, all he had time to do before the door opened and Shiro stepped inside was throw the last two biscuits down to Kosmo and toss the box back onto the sofa. He shoved his hands in his pockets, making his face carefully blank.

“Hey,” Shiro greeted, shrugging off his wet jacket in the doorway. “There’s some lightning starting up out there, I think tonight might be our first real storm we’ve had in a while. I brought your bike helmet in so it wouldn’t fill with water.”

“Mm,” Keith answered.

Shiro paused in setting the motorcycle helmet on the table, turning to sweep his gaze around the room. He looked at Kosmo, chomping away on the floor, then at the box on the sofa, then at Keith. He let an exasperated breath out through his nose.

“Do you have dog biscuit in your mouth?”

Keith pursed his lips. Shiro pointed at him warningly.

“Do not swallow that to hide the evidence.”

Keith contemplated doing so anyway out of spite. After a moment, he spit the chewed-up dog biscuit out into his own hand while Shiro made a noise of disgust and grabbed the small wastebasket from the corner.

“Oh yeah, you are the future,” Shiro quipped.

“I was tricked,” Keith defended. “Betrayed by my  _alleged_  best friend.”

“Your common sense? Your logic? Or maybe…”

Shiro got that look on his face, the one Keith knew meant he was about to ditch any pretense of being a mature adult and go full jackass. Warning bells went off in his head and he knew, he just knew what was about to come out of his roommate’s mouth.

“Don’t,” he warned, grabbing the box of dog biscuits. He pulled out a small handful and brandished them like a weapon. “Don’t do it.”

“Don’t what?” Shiro asked innocently, edging around him toward the kitchen. But his sly grin didn’t waver. “Don’t ask if your brain melted out of your ears when Lance gave you a kiss on the tarmac today?”

Keith launched the dog treats, and Shiro ducked them and rolled behind the kitchen counter. He was laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Keith scowled. “How do you even know about that already?”

“What did you think was going to happen when you let Allura go early?” Shiro asked. He was still chuckling as he pulled himself up off the kitchen floor. “She came right to Veronica and Romelle to talk about Lance’s condition. Of course the kiss came up.”

“Yeah, I have a couple things to say about that too,” Keith said hotly, forcibly changing the subject away from his embarrassment. “How long have you known what’s going on with Lance? Have you been lying to me?”

“Hey, no,” Shiro’s smile faded, and he quickly let the teasing drop. “Absolutely not. He told me when we were at the hospital on Saturday.”

“And you didn’t think it was important enough to share?”

“It was his secret to tell, not mine. I made him the offer of transferring to the Atlas that morning, he took the weekend to finally be honest with his family and then called me Sunday night. You were already asleep early, I just logged in and started the paperwork.”

“You should have woken me up,” Keith grumbled. He crossed his arms and fell back onto the sofa, glaring hard at the wall. He was so sick of trying to connect with people only to have them keep holding back secrets. “You should’ve said something to me before I left for the base. Do you have any idea what kind of morning I went through after I got that transfer request with no explanation?”

Shiro came out of the kitchen and sat down on the other end of the sofa. To his credit, he did look sorry. Not that it was enough to calm the ill feeling in Keith’s stomach.

“There was nothing I could tell you that would’ve made your morning any easier,” Shiro answered. “Lance wanted to speak to you himself and give you the details. Anything I said to you would raise questions I wasn’t able to answer.”

Keith knew he was right. If he’d had a chance to speak to Shiro after getting that email, he would have pressed until he got the whole story. Instead he’d been forced to wait for Lance to arrive, and by the time it was obvious he’d be late Keith’s attention was already focused on getting the rest of the team airborne and into drills.

He pulled his legs up onto the sofa, tightening his position and curling himself up into a nice, safe little ball. Outside the rain started to fall harder and he hoped it never stopped. He just wanted to stay here in the cozy apartment and not have to deal with his team falling apart. He’d managed to not think about it for most of the day, but now that they’d talked about it the feelings were starting to sneak back in.

He  _was_  hurt. Lance leaving the team was sad in its own way, he was an irreplaceable bridge between Keith and everyone else. But what hurt was that the truth had been withheld from him for six months. He had thought he and Lance had gotten close, he’d been laboring under the delusion that maybe he meant it when he said they were a good team.

But this? This was just more proof that Keith was right about trusting people. A lot of them lied, and they all eventually left.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Keith’s eyes shifted from his knees to Shiro, and when they did he felt something warm on his face. He scowled and buried his head in his arms, trying to will the stupid tears to stop. He was a grown man and a Lieutenant in the military, his reactions to all of this were ridiculous.

“I’ll be fine. I always am.” He blinked his eyes furiously, raising his head back up to wipe his cheek on his sleeve. “It’s just stress. You know how I am, this happens when I get really mad.”

“All right. Do you want to talk about today?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. His transfer’s in the mail department, you should have it tomorrow.”

“No, I meant…” Shiro trailed off. He looked uncertain, which was unusual. It was a side of him few people even knew existed. Keith knew that Shiro, like himself, preferred to display confidence to the world and only relax the act at home.

“You meant?” He prompted.

“Allura said a lot to Veronica on the bridge this afternoon, Keith. The team figured out that you’re gay today. I thought you knew.”

Keith sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, letting his head fall forward on his arms again. He wondered what the odds were of a Galra cruiser dropping down through the atmosphere and just flattening the whole block to put him out of his misery.

“I don’t know why they’d think that.”

“Keith.”

“I’m not hiding it or anything. I just don’t know why they’d suddenly think about it at all.”

Keith had never specifically told anyone about that little facet of his identity. Shiro knew because he’d spotted it early on, before Keith had up and decided to just start repressing everything in his life. His mother knew, there was a lot that had been shared in the quantum abyss without words. Adam had known because he had been dating Shiro. Only two of those people were still alive, and he’d never had an actual conversation about it with either one of them.

It was just something that was. His life didn’t exactly have room for dating and romance, and that was the only realm where his preferences mattered. In every other aspect of his life, he had given no indication he was any different from anyone else.

“Well, it probably had something to do with the fact that Lance gave you a kiss and then left wearing your jacket,” Shiro pointed out. “And you weren’t exactly…subtle when he did.”

Keith raised his head, looking at Shiro with narrowed eyes.

“How would you know what I looked like?”

Shiro raised his arms in a self-depreciating gesture.

“Look, Keith, no upstanding officer of the Earth military would agree to let an underage hacker pull up classified security video of the Lion hangar tarmac to show him. And they definitely wouldn’t download a ten-second cut of the feed to play on repeat for an hour.” He paused. “But I did.”

“Oh my God, it’s on  _video_?” Keith whined, covering his face with his hands. His feet slipped off the edge of the sofa and he slid down until he was lying on the floor. “I need to dig a hole to just climb into and die.”

“They don’t seem upset or anything, I think they’re just surprised,” Shiro said carefully. “Well, Allura might be upset. She obviously still has her eye on Lance.”

“Sure, now that Lotor’s gone,” Keith mumbled into his hands, low enough that Shiro couldn’t hear. It was a spiteful thing to say, catty even. But he’d quietly had his eye on Lance since Sendak had nearly taken down the Castle of Lions, he felt like he was allowed to have one moment of private pining. “How bad is it? You still have it, don’t you? Let me see it.”

“Are you sure?”

Keith let his hands fall away from his face and looked at Shiro upside down. “Yeah. I have to see what they saw if I’m going to address it.”

Shiro took out his phone and opened the video Pidge had given him. He passed it over and Keith sat up, chewing his thumbnail as he hit the play button and watched the incident from an angle above the hangar doors. When it was over he played it again. And again. And again. Taking in all the things he hadn’t noticed or realized where going on from his perspective.

He saw himself and Lance—wearing his jacket and on the phone--approach the group.  Lance fell back a little and Keith moved forward, putting himself between Lance and the others in some weird, unnecessary, vaguely protective motion. Lance hung up the phone, two seconds passed, and Rachel’s car pulled up.

Lance was still behind him, but close. He gave an uncertain, nervous wave and leaned  _around_  Keith to kiss his cheek. Keith had been looking at the others and then had been distracted by the kiss, he never noticed the arm come up in front of him or the hand curl over his shoulder. It was clearly visible in the video, an intimate partial hug, but it was so fast and so light he hadn’t felt it with his under-armor still on under his clothes.

Lance pulled away and headed to the car, looking at his phone. Keith watched his own face carefully.

His eyes, on the team, widened at the kiss. His head turned as Lance walked away to look at the back of the other boy’s head, confused. Then his eyebrow raised and eyes dipped down along Lance’s body in a very obvious and visible once-over before he composed himself and looked back at the other Paladins.

Everything about the exchange was so quick it was missed during the actual event, every motion so normal and natural it went unnoticed in the moment. But Shiro was right, the way he’d looked at Lance as he walked away left very little question about where his interests were.

“Okay.” He handed the phone back to Shiro and rubbed his temples. “This is going to make my weekend a little more complicated.”

“What’s happening on the weekend?”

Kosmo caught the scent of the treats that were scattered on the kitchen floor and got up to go investigate. As he passed, Keith grabbed his tail and pulled himself to his feet. He felt like a mess, inside and out.

“I’m going to see a movie.” Shiro perked up at that. Keith knew it was weird for him to go out to the movies, he was more the type of person to lay on his bedroom floor for two days streaming a series. “With Lance. Only Lance. He asked me to hang out.”

“Oh.” Shiro looked sympathetic, familiar with this situation. “Does he know how it might look?”

“I don’t…think so,” Keith hadn’t really taken any time to process that he had a movie appointment on Saturday. Now he had to, and he had to think about what it might do to Lance’s reputation. Especially since he was going to be working with a group of pilots who were not his friends.. “I’ll catch him tomorrow before you start running him into the ground and cancel.”

“Or you could try having a conversation with him,” Shiro suggested. “I know you two are capable of having those. Tell him what it’s going to look like and let him decide if he’d rather not go. And if he does, then enjoy a day hanging out with your friend.”

That was more terrifying than just canceling and hiding in his office for the rest of his life. Keith hugged himself and looked at the floor.

“I need to lay down,” he decided. “I ordered a pizza, the box is in the oven to keep warm.”

He made his escape, hopping over Kosmo in the hallway and slipping into his room before Shiro could give him any more good advice he knew he’d be too afraid to follow.

Keith’s bedroom here was a far cry from his quarters in the Castle of Lions or his office at the Garrison. He finally felt like he had a home here, something he hadn’t felt since he was very small. This was a place he intended to stay, to keep coming back to every night and to return to after missions.

The room was softly lit by a string of garden lights draped around the top edges of the walls, and painted a light shade of purple. The TV stand against one wall had a game console and a pile of games neatly stacked underneath, and two tall bookshelves flanking the window were filed with comics and adventure novels. There were some posters on his walls—bands and TV shows—and some sketches of Keith’s own taped up here and there.

He locked the door behind him, but Kosmo appeared next to him with a little popping noise before he was even halfway to his bed. He threw himself down on top of the soft, pillowy mattress and called the wolf up next to him.

Keith laid on his side, hugging Kosmo and staring out the window, into the lightning-filled night.

* * * * * * * * * *

####  _Six months ago:_

Lance was bent over, leaning into the freshly-fueled rover to adjust the seat most comfortably to his height. Keith wasn’t exactly admiring the view—now wasn’t the time—but he was leaning back against a parked supply van, watching.

He didn’t really like the plan they had. There were five Paladins and four MFE fighters, which meant one very vulnerable Paladin down on the ground in Galra airspace. It was a calculated risk, and his calculations kept coming up short.

It should have been him in the rover, he had said as much in his private meeting with Iverson, Sam and Shiro.  His time with the Blade made him about as close to a ground combat specialist as they had, and as the leader he should be the one to shoulder the most risk.

He’d been overruled. Kindly, of course, nobody wanted anyone to get hurt here, but he still wasn’t happy with the responses. He knew they were right, too, but they still sucked.

As the leader, Keith couldn’t be risked. He was the head of the group, the strategy and the action. He had the plans, he gave the orders, and if one of the Paladins did go down they needed him in the air to compensate and reorganize everyone else’s movements.

Lance was the next best thing. He didn’t really have an official title, but it was an unspoken agreement that he was second in command. Not only was he a distance fighter, which was advantageous if he had to ditch the rover and go in by foot, but his close combat was only a little short of Keith’s level these days. He was a better choice than Hunk, Pidge, or Allura for potential ground conflict.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Keith looked up as James Griffin approached, coming to lean against the van next to him. He nodded in the direction of Lance and the rover, clearly not happy with the situation.

“No,” Keith said honestly. “But with only four fighters, we don’t have a choice.”

“No. I mean sending him out with his sister.” James crossed his arms, putting one foot up against the van. For a moment Keith thought he was mocking him for the way he was standing, but he was staring at Veronica where she was going over a map with Iverson and Shiro. “Veronica is one of the best we have, she should be here on base helping to prep a backup plan if we fail. No offense to Lance, but I don’t like the idea of having her get killed out there if something happens and she won’t leave him behind.”

James’ concerns mirrored one of Keith’s own biggest worries so closely it made him feel sick. Another reason Lance shouldn’t have been on the ground at all, he was far too sociable for front-line combat. He was going to worry about his unprotected driver anyway, but doubly so now that she was family.

“I didn’t know Veronica would be the driver when I gave the okay for the arrangement,” Keith answered. “If they told me, I would’ve refused.  No offense to Veronica, but the last thing we need is one of the only five Paladins getting killed because he wouldn’t leave another soldier.”

He and James both looked out over the tarmac and heaved matching sighs of frustration.

“Frigging McClains,” James muttered.

“Damned McClains,” Keith grumbled at the same time.

The two team leaders gave each other annoyed, sideways glances. Neither of them really wanted to get along, and this was starting to get too amiable for comfort.

“Are you coming or what?” James asked, shoving away from the van and heading toward his fighter.

Keith remained were he was for another moment, looking out over the tarmac. At Hunk and Pidge giving a last minute fist bump before parting, and Allura heading over to say something to Lance. That last one annoyed him in a way he knew it shouldn’t, because he had been standing here for ten minutes thinking about doing the same thing without ever acting on it.

Because he knew if he did, he wasn’t going to come back to the fighers. He would change the plan and take the ground route himself, and effectively throw off all the calculations made regarding which Lion would be going where.

“The mission above all else,” he whispered to himself, grabbing his helmet off the crate beside him and following James to the fighter. He understood the necessity of the concept, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.

Keith dropped into the cockpit behind James and folded his hands in his lap, his eyes glued to the panel in front of him. Different from his Lion or the Galra strikers he’d flown, but all familiar controls he had seen in training simulations while still enrolled at the Garrison. He ran his fingers over gauges and monitors, studying the layout and putting names to everything from memory.

Anything to not look out across the tarmac.

Keith didn’t feel right about this. Something about this whole situation felt wrong and he didn’t know what it was, but he’d long since learned to trust his gut. It had started nagging at him about half an hour ago and hadn’t let up, and he knew if he looked back at his teammates he was going to try to call this off.

He didn’t have a reason. He didn’t have any solid proof. This was their one shot at saving their whole planet and something inside of him was screaming to put a halt to the entire thing. He wanted to put it down to being nervous about having a team mate down on the ground and yes, that was part of it, but it felt bigger than that.

The jet started to taxi down the runway, picking up speed at a pace unfathomable for an earth-made ship only a few years ago. She lifted off so smoothly it was impossible to tell when her landing gear was no longer touching the ground, and gained height at an almost ninety-degree angle as the flight team took the planes up as high as they could as fast as they could to avoid the detection of low-flying scouts.

It was the kind of jet fighter Keith had once dreamed about piloting, back before Shiro’s disappearance had thrown him into a downward spiral. He should have been marveling at how she moved, how gracefully and silent she maneuvered.

Instead he stared at the blinking controls in front of him, running through the morning. He replayed everything, hour by hour, looking at everything through the eyes of a Blade to try and pick out what he’d missed. There was a growing sense of urgency in the pit of his stomach, and he had to know why. When he got to the point of takeoff he went back and played it over again. And again, and again, searching for that one thing he knew would be out of place but not finding it.

“Hey.”

Keith looked up from the console, to the small mirror set up at the front to let the two occupants look at each other. James was frowning.

“Does this day feel wrong to you?”

Keith kept his gaze for a long moment, then let out a low growl and dropped his eyes back down to the console.

“Yeah,” James grunted. “Me too.”

They fell back into an uncomfortable silence, until a small beep notified them that they were crossing into the Urals area of Russia. There was no more time to try and figure it out.

_Patience yields focus._

Keith closed his eyes and cleared his mind, breathing deeply and letting everything go. It was a hard-learned skill, wiping the slate completely clean and bringing only one task to the forefront. He didn’t think about the mission, or the base, or his friends. He didn’t think about being thousands of feet in the air, or the ground flying by below at high speed.

_Patience yields focus_.

The events of the upcoming battle were going to play out as they would. There was no way of knowing what was coming, all they could do was prepare. The only thing Keith was able to do right now was the job he was here to do, now, in this moment. He had to calm his aggressive thoughts about the upcoming battle and stop being angry with himself for not being able to figure out the source of his discomfort.

_Patience yields focus._

Nothing existed but him and the Black Lion. He was here on Earth but their connection was true and strong. He was the head of his unit, the leader. There was no more room for reluctance or hesitation, it was time for him to embrace his position and everything it represented.

_Black…I need you, buddy. Please be able to hear me._

The quiet hum of the MFE engine died away into white noise in the background. Keith felt the pull upward and outward, away from this lonely little planet and out through open space. It was the same bond he’d always felt with Black, and with Red before him. Like a ribbon or rope tying them together, anchoring one to the other. But it felt different this time. Keith felt different this time.

It was a sensation like waking up, when the last traces of sleepy confusion faded away and the world came back into focus. He could see now what he couldn’t before, the weakness in how he and Black were bound. This external connection between them, reaching outward to make contact, it was exposed and fragile and could be interrupted. Keith knew, instinctively, that he had to let it go.

He stopped reaching out, stopped reaching up. Instead, he turned his focus inward.

It was there. So natural, so all-encompassing, so blatant he’d never noticed the forest for the trees. Black had always been reaching out to him, all he had to do was find himself and accept.

Keith relaxed and stopped fighting the inevitable. He let go of his uncertainty and insecurity and reached for his sense of purpose instead. Reached outward again, this time for his reasons for being here. And he found them, weak as their bond was when they were so far away. He found them and he held on tight, feeling their presence.

Pidge, flying over the forests of Peru, nervously kicking her leg. Hunk, soaring over the rocky arctic desert of Greenland, hands fisted in determination. Allura, racing over the Sudd swamplands of South Sudan, breathing deeply to remain calm. Lance, speeding across the dusty fields of New Mexico in the rover, heart pounding and stomach tied in knots.

_They’re mine,_  the thought was his, mostly, but came partly from somewhere else. Somewhere deep inside.  _Ours. Our stability, our mind, our heart, our courage. We need them to be whole, they need us to lead._

_I’m ready to do that now._

The sounds of air resistance and the purr of the quiet engine abruptly disappeared, replaced by the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet. Keith opened his eyes to see the elegant drape of rings on a background of sparkling stars, the blackness of space stretching outward forever. He felt the roar rather than heard it, vibrating through his body with the force of a small quake.

He felt his limbs start to move, felt himself rise. One step, two, takeoff. No guide to go by but the small blue dot in the distance, but he knew that was where he was going. Around him he felt his pride, racing after him, following the calls of their Paladins.

There was no sensation in space, no friction to tell him he was moving, but he knew that he was. His view of this system, of this galaxy, of this universe, was larger and clearer than it had ever been before, the quickly shrinking distance calculating out plainly in his head. He knew where he was, could pinpoint his exact location, could count down the moments until he arrived at his destination.

The searing heat of entry was little more than an uncomfortable warmth licking over his limbs as he descended through the atmosphere, dropping down toward the ocean below at hundreds of miles per hour. The blazing glow of friction faded to reveal clear blue sky, and he shifted his direction to pull away from the others and head where he needed to go.

Energy built up around him, a purple glow of quintessence he felt running through his body in a thrilling rush. He soared across the water, then over trees, then past mountaintops, everything flying by in a blur but at the same time clear as day. Wind lashed at his body, trying in vain to slow him down but nothing could stop him as he tore through the sky.

It was a strange out of body experience, to see the MFE flying up ahead through eyes that weren’t quite his own. He closed the distance, dropping the tiny fighter jet into shadow with a low, rumbling growl.

The sound reached Keith’s ears, breaking the spell. He looked up to see Black keeping pace with them as James let out a whistle.

“Okay, I gotta admit, that’s a pretty sweet ride,”  he allowed. “Color me impressed.”

“Wait until you see him in action,” Keith answered, unfastening his safety harness. “Okay, just keep on a straight course, he’ll do all the maneuvering. Ready for release?”

“Ready,” James called. “Three, two, one…go!”

James opened the canopy, hunkering down to avoid the lash of the wind and adjusting his helmet to make up for the drop in pressurization. Black dropped down even with them, about fifty yards back, mouth opening to allow entrance.

Keith launched himself out of his seat without looking, rolling across the wing and curling up tight as the MFE kept going without him. He hit his jet pack just as he was passing into Black’s open jaws, to keep himself from impacting the back wall of the ship’s entrance port. Within moments he was climbing into the cockpit and dropping into the pilot’s seat, turning on his comms unit.

They had all been in communications blackout until they were boarded, to keep from distracting each other during this critical hour. Keith immediately pulled up an overlay of the other lions’ pilot readings.

“Everyone sound off,” he ordered.

“Allura here.”

“Hunk here.”

“Pidge here.”

Silence.

“Red Lion, sound off.”

No response.

“Red Lion, do you copy?”

Nothing.

“There’s still a few doboshes,” Allura said quietly. “He’s probably still boarding.”

“Could’ve been a roadblock they had to go around,” Pidge added hopefully. “it would add a few minutes.”

“What is it your general was saying?” Allura was trying to sound positive, but their voices were making Keith want to scream. They were not who he wanted to hear speaking right now. “No news is good news?”

“Everyone shut up,” Keith snapped. He connected to the military radio, intending to ask Shiro for an update on Lance’s location. What he got was a staticy burst of mayhem.

“Lance, where are you?” Shiro’s voice came over the radio. He was patched in both to the vehicle radios and the Paladin’s comms, and Keith could hear explosions from the car’s feed in the background. “Can you hear me?”

The comms unit flared to life with the sound of laserfire as Lance activated his helmet mic, his voice panicked. The noise all became echoed, broadcast to them both from Lance himself and through the background of Shiro’s connection.

“Whoa! Veronica! Look out!

Keith heard a low, loud sound that made his breath catch in his throat, an impact strike too close to be safe. The crashing of rock, the shriek of twisting metal, followed by Lance, screaming. Keith heard the echo stop and knew the rover’s radio had been destroyed, then Shiro’s soft words.

“Oh no.”

_No._

“Lance, are you there?”

_No, no, no._

“Lance, where are you, buddy?”

_Where are you? He needs you, why aren’t you there?_

“Lance, can you hear us?”

_This isn’t happening, this can’t be happening. It should be me, I should be the one on the ground._

“Lance?” Keith couldn’t keep the panic out of his voice. There was no way they could have lost a member of the team, not now, not after everything they’d been through. “Lance! Come in!”

He reached out, wild and unrestrained, trying to catch that little glimmer of presence he’d felt from each of them earlier. Stretched out further through Black, touching on each of the other Lions, searching  desperately.

He couldn’t feel Lance but he found her, still floating silently on Saturn’s farthest moon. Anger flooded through him, an anguished sort of fury, at himself and at Sam and at Shiro for the way the planning had been done.

_Come on, Lance. Answer. Please answer me._

The sounds of laser fire continued to crackle over Lance’s mic, then there was static and the line went dead.

Keith pressed outward with everything he had, out from Black, through the bonds the Lions shared, pouring every bit of will he had into Red. The body would always support the head, but the head would always control the body and he would be damned if it would be otherwise today. He needed her to move, he needed her to come. He needed her to hear him and listen.

He felt her, felt her reach back.

_Don’t do this to us. I need you to answer. I need you to be okay._

Fire shot through his body, the familiar presence of Red colored with the strangely cool presence of Black. His vision flickered and dropped into negative for a split second, making him dizzy and unable to tell up from down.

Suddenly he was moving again, but this time smaller, lighter, faster. The world was a double overlay to him; his eyes over Black’s over Red’s. Inside his cockpit, outside of it, taking off from the moon’s surface, urgency and determination flooding through all three and compounding like an echo chamber.

_Please. Please…_ **please.**

Keith reached out even further, searched intently for the tiniest little thread connecting him to Lance. He found it, just a trace, only to have Red’s presence steamroll through him like a speeding truck. She used him like a GPS, honing in on where she needed to go.

Lance’s thread was frayed and faded, feeding back pain and anxiety. Keith could feel his aching body moving in spite of injuries, his heart pounding and his breathing heavy. He knew, with certainty, Red wasn’t going to get there on time. They were going to lose a teammate.

_Over my dead body._

Keith let go of that outward grip on Red, turned inward again like he had with Black. He felt them both, clear and close, and held onto them both with all of the psychic strength he could muster. He followed Red’s path, where her route would take her, pictured the Earth from the viewpoint of just above.

He slammed his bayard into the port, willed the distance to disappear, willed her closer to her target. He felt the familiar sensation of Black teleporting only this time it wasn’t him, and a second later he saw through Red’s eyes as she burst into being just above Earth’s atmosphere.

They dove, fast and furious, claws and teeth rending anything that got in the way. Through the upper atmosphere, through the lower. Straight down, sensors picking out the flaming wreckage of a rover and the two bodies standing nearby. Laser fire being exchanged, a striker bearing down…

Keith felt the impact ripple through his joints as Red hit the earth at full force, crushing the striker underneath her front claws. He felt undercurrent of anger as she roared, and was jarred awake in his seat.

He looked blearily around Black’s cockpit, fighting his helmet off. Blood dripped out of his nose, staining the front of his armor, and he wondered if any of what he’d just seen was real.

There was a soft beep. The port ejected his bayard. Static sounded on the comms, and then the line was restored. Lance’s voice floated over the airwaves, tired and dazed.

“Red Lion, checking in.”

* * * * * * * * * *

####  _Current day:_

Keith gave up on lying around in self pity about an hour into the effort. Shiro had reheated the pizza and the smell was filling the apartment, and he wasn’t really about to miss out on food he’d paid for. Kosmo followed him as he padded out of the bedroom and down the hall, probably looking for more treats, but continued on to one of his toys on the living room floor when Keith stopped to lean against the wall at the kitchen entrance.

Shiro was there, pulling a baking sheet with half of the pizza on it out of the oven. He set it on top and then leaned back against the oven, and the two considered each other in silence. Finally, Shiro gave a small smile and offered his arm for a hug.

Keith sighed softly and pushed away from the wall, closing the distance between them to wrap his arms tightly around his brother. Maybe it was that he’d been alone for so long when he was young, or maybe it was that being tough on the outside was so tiring, but he relished contact when people gave it.

When they parted, Shiro grabbed some plates from the cabinet and put two slices on each. Neither of them said anything as they went into the living room and collapsed on the sofa, and no more words were exchanged for the rest of the evening. They sat in companionable silence, watching a couple of game shows before they each retired to their rooms for the night.

Keith knew before his door closed behind him again that he wasn’t going to sleep well that night, but he gave it a try anyway. He lay stretched out on his bed on his back, staring at the flickers of lightning that danced across the ceiling. Trying to ignore that he would soon be parading strangers by Red so she could pick someone to take Lance’s place.

He finally grew too agitated to pretend he could rest anymore. Rising, he went to the window and knelt on a pillow, resting his arms on the sill and closing his eyes.

There were things Keith didn’t share with the others, secrets he kept for himself. Things like how strong his link was with the Black Lion, and just how often he indulged in exercising it. There was just something about the connection, the stream of quintessence that ran through him when he activated it even from a distance. It was pleasant, numbing, it made the real world recede and flooded his brain with feel-good chemicals.

When he was with the team, running drills or training, he bonded with Black by reaching out. At times like these, when he needed to forget, he reached inward instead.

Miles away, in the hangars at the edge of the Galaxy Garrison, the Black Lion’s cockpit began to come alive. Its communication system came online, broadcasting the code to open the hangar door and expose the massive ship to the stormy night.

Keith felt the rainfall as he moved out into the dark, felt the sting of water coming down in a torrent. He felt the wind as he took off, saw the lightning flashes illuminate the military base down below. Camouflaged by night and the storm he went higher and higher, faster and faster, until he broke the cloud cover and left the thunder behind for clear, star-filled sky.

There was no destination in mind, no mission to complete or job to do. He simply let go, let the core of the universe wash over and through him, and gave himself over to the experience of flight. 

Mindless, thoughtless, fearless, a quintessence-induced bliss.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Current day:_ **

Pidge should have known something was up between Keith and Lance from day one.  She was younger than the others, smaller, and often spoke in technical jargon, three things that seemed to make everyone often put her in a separate box by herself. It was an unconscious separation, one that tended to make them forget she was even there.

So sometimes they didn’t police their facial expressions, and sometimes they let words slip out. And even on the rare occasion they did realized they’d slipped up in front of her, they forgot she was a master of puzzles and assumed from her youthful appearance that she wouldn’t know what they meant anyway.

But Pidge knew computers, and what were people except complicated computers? There were rules to how they functioned and interacted with one another, rules that came from biology and cultural norms. Pidge knew this very well, because she tended to violate those rules on the regular.

She should have known something was going on from Lance. She hadn't known him very well at the Garrison before becoming his testing partner, but gossip was king in the dorms and his name had never come up in conjunction with any of the rivalries going on. He’d never fought, he’d never been aggressive. Even the arguments they had in the simulator were just nitpicking and blatant disregard for direction, or him trying to show off. He was out to prove himself, be seen as the cool guy, not get on anyone’s bad side.

He was social. Too social sometimes. He liked to put on shows and have people pay attention. She'd never heard of him going after anybody the way he'd gone after Keith right from the beginning.

Keith should have wordlessly told her something was going on shortly after their arrival. As someone who was ostracized and often alone herself, she recognized it in other people. Keith’s house in the desert, the way he often stood back with his arms crossed, that was the kind of person who avoided interacting with people they didn’t know or like. Lance and Keith interacted. They interacted a _lot_.

The clues were there, if she’d cared enough to pay attention. Blatant in hindsight.

Keith remembered Lance well enough to recall he had once been a cargo pilot, and it was a pretty good bet that the only reason Shiro knew his name and not Pidge’s or Hunk’s was that Keith had spoken about him specifically. The question was, had he told Shiro about Lance after they’d rescued him, or before he’d ever gone to Kerberos?

Lance was terrible at remembering names, unless there was some important reason for him to. And in Lance McClain’s procedural bible, the only reason to remember someone’s name if they weren’t on his team or one of his heroes was if they were potential date material. Which made it curious that Lance had been able to immediately remember Keith’s name after picking him out, in the dark, with his face covered, just from his _hair_.

They had never stopped going at each other from the time they set foot in the Castle of Lions. The two idiots fed each other’s antics, and even though they supposedly couldn’t stand each other they always gravitated to the same place to butt heads.

They didn’t ignore each other. They didn’t keep space between them. Keith’s expressions when around Lance—sometimes smiles, often confused interest or annoyance—were very rarely real scowls. And Lance’s “rivalry,” more often than not, was him showing off for Keith’s attention.

Pidge was kind of annoyed she hadn’t picked up on that as she ran her daily diagnostics, making sure everything in her cockpit was neat and orderly and how she liked it to be. She was younger than the others, not really at the point of being interested in romance or dating, so she’d just sort of filed Keith away in her head as being the same way.

She knew Shiro was gay. The man was a legend in her house, of course her father had worked with his flight partner and boyfriend as well. So she wasn’t too surprised he didn’t go after any of the pretty girls they came across in their travels. Hunk had met Shay and had been smitten, so it made sense that he didn’t flirt a lot. Lance flirted with everyone, of course, he was a teen boy. Keith had never so much as blinked in the direction of a woman.

And honestly, didn’t it make sense for a guy like Shiro to take a young man who was very, very similar to him under his wing?

“So what are we doing?” Hunk came over the comm line.

“I’m wondering why the entry logs are off,” Pidge answered, flicking some files across her overlay. It was part of the check she did every morning, making sure there hadn’t been any unauthorized access to the hangars. There was a blip in the entry logs, a door had been opened long after they had all left the base for the night.

“No, I meant about Lance leaving. Do we…do we throw him a farewell party? We just found out he’s got some weird brain disease, do you think he might take a party the wrong way?”

“I don’t think he wants a party.”

“But how do we know?”

“It’s Lance. When he wants something he announces it. Usually with fireworks and a Mariachi band.”

“Or a kiss on the cheek?”

Pidge and Hunk looked at each other over the video feed. They both had to look away as they tried to keep from laughing. Pidge recovered and downloaded the entry logs to her tablet.

“What are we even going to do without him in Red?” Hunk lamented.

Pidge wished she had an answer for that, but she didn’t. She always had answers to everything, but not to this. She wasn’t even sure there was anything they could do, except try not to hate whoever came next.

She left Green’s cockpit and climbed down to the ground, hiking across the massive hangars to the bay where the Black Lion was sitting. Hunk trailed after her, continuing his musings while she ran some checks on the access system.

“Maybe we should get him a card,” he suggested. “Go see how his first day is going.”

“He’s probably starting basic training, I’m betting Shiro’s going to kick his butt. Let’s give him a day or two then drop by his house to make fun of him for being exhausted and sore. Can you double check this for me? It looks like the hangars were opened last night, but this isn’t any access code I recognize.”

She handed over the tablet in her hands and looked around the hangar for anything out of place while Hunk took a look at the records.

“I don’t recognize it either,” he said after a moment, handing it back. He looked around as well. “Nothing’s moved though, and we didn’t get any alarm calls. It’s probably the security guards doing their rounds, might have come in to check on things.”

“I guess.”

Pidge closed out the access logs and they headed back across the hangars as Veronica’s car pulled up to let Allura out. She felt a flutter of hope as she checked the back seat, but Lance hadn’t caught a ride with them today.

She missed her pilot. Granted, that pilot had crashed them into Kerberos and failed them on one of their exams, but people made mistakes.

Allura looked a bit down as she came to join them, and Pidge guessed she’d been looking forward to seeing Lance today as well. He must have driven to the base himself to avoid everyone.

“Uh, are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?”

Pidge looked up at Hunk, then followed his line of sight to the nearby building where Keith kept his office. He had just come out and was walking toward them, helmet in one hand and a gym bag in the other.

He was wearing the black Paladin armor.

There was something almost mournful about seeing Keith in black after associating him with red for so long. It was a little bit jarring, but if he noticed them staring he gave no indication.

“Allura, your armor,” he told her, offering her the bag. It was open, and Pidge could see the blue helmet lying on top. Lance’s helmet. Lance’s armor. It hit her then that he really wasn’t coming back to the Voltron team. “You don’t have to wear it. Stow it in Blue if you want to stick with your pink gear.”

She took the bag sadly and nodded. Pidge looked away, feeling a lump rising up in her throat. Nobody had died, she knew she should be happy about that, but they were…well, it was hard to describe. They were more than friends, more than a team. They shared something nobody else in the universe experienced, and now one of them was gone.

“All right, we’re going to practice with a new formation until we have a fifth pilot,” Keith looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept at all the night before. “If something happens before we have a body in that seat we’re going to have to be familiar with how to fight as a four-person team. You three will fly a vee formation. Pidge, you’re on point.”

“Huh?” Pidge almost dropped her tablet. “Me?”

“If you’re not going to be on point, shouldn’t I be?” Allura asked. “It makes more sense, I have more leadership experience.”

“She’ll be fine leading. You’ll bring up her right and Hunk will bring up her left.”

Keith put on his helmet, not even looking behind him as Black rose and walked out of the hangar toward them. Pidge had to admit it was pretty impressive to see him handle the Black Lion in the same way most people would handle a housecat, boarding his own craft and leaving them to scramble to theirs.

“Does he seem a little moody to you?” Hunk asked as they jogged toward their lions.

“No more than usual,” Pidge grinned. “Last time he came to our house my mom made him take a nap.”

She climbed up Green’s entry ladder and bound into her cockpit, firing everything up and trotting out of the hangar bay. Hunk was right next to her, with Allura bringing up the rear. They all moved to the end of the runway, lining up as Keith had ordered.

“All right guys, here’s the plan,” Keith was once again calm and patient, his new normal, which was at odds with how he’d been back on the tarmac. “Pidge, Green is the smallest and she processes more data faster than the rest of us. You’re going to be the eyes of the formation, you’re going to scan and feed information back to us in real time. Allura, Hunk, you guys are a little bigger and a little better armored, you watch Green’s flanks. Learn to read the information she gives you. Pidge, I’ll be up high, covering your six.”

A small red light flashed on the lower corner of Pidge’s overlay, telling her a simulation was about to run. She took a deep breath, crossing her fingers that she didn’t mess this up, and took up the controls.

It was a little bit nerve-wracking to suddenly be at the front of the formation. Pidge knew she could do it, but she was used to being on Keith’s left and following his lead from there. When the small red light turned green she took off, not entirely sure where to go.

“Speed up,” Keith advised. “We’re not taking a Sunday stroll.”

“Sorry,” she groaned picking up some speed. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to be going, I’m not used to being up front.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to move her back?” Allura asked. “It’s probably easier to analyze the terrain while following somebody else’s lead.”

“No.”

“I just think—”

“I said no.”

“Mommy and daddy are fighting,” Hunk’s voice whispered over a private feed, making Pidge crack a smile and breaking some of her tension. “I hope we get two Christmases.”

“We don’t want them to fight, we need to be a team,” Pidge whispered back. “Do you remember how bad we got our butts kicked by the Castle defenses before we figured out how to form Voltron? I’m not looking forward to having that experience with a Galra cruiser.”

“To be fair, we have had that experience with multiple Galra cruisers, you should probably be used to it by now. ”

 “Uh oh…it’s quiet,” Pidge realized.

There was silence from the main feed, which could only mean one thing: Keith and Allura were arguing on a private channel.

“Okay, I know this is going to sound bad, but hear me out,” Hunk reasoned. “I’ll take Allura in the divorce. She’s cool and really pretty, so I’ll probably get a really awesome stepdad.”

“So I go with Keith?” Pidge asked.

“Yeah.”

“We’ll he’s cool and really pretty too, and…apparently I’m probably also going to get a really awesome stepdad,” she squeaked, trying to hold back her giggles.

It didn’t work. Both of them started cracking up, until they heard Keith’s voice come over the line.

“I’m the only one who can establish a private communication channel while I have these simulations running, just so you know. Just because you can’t hear me doesn’t mean I can’t hear you.”

Pidge let out a squawk and slapped both hands over her mouth.

“Oh quiznak,” Hunk whispered.

“Everybody land. Now.”

Pidge winced at the sharpness in Keith’s voice, turning Green down into a spin that brought her down and back to the edge of the runway. She landed with the other four Lions behind her, still in formation, and came to a stop about halfway long the strip of asphalt. Her screen flickered as Keith fully opened the communication channels, bringing up feeds of each of the other Paladins.

“Listen up, all of you,” Keith ordered. “Shiro showed me the video feed from yesterday and told me what he heard you all talking about. Yes, I’m interested in men. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything. You guys are my team. You’re my friends, I don’t even care if you poke fun at me about it now and then. But do _not_  make comments like that behind my back. Got it?”

“Yes,” Pidge murmured, feeling heat in her face at having been caught. “Sorry. It’s just…everything’s a little weird.”

“I know. Everything’s upside down and everyone’s out of sorts, and nobody’s been telling you guys anything. So look, let’s just get this all out on the table so we can move on and I don’t have to wonder if you’re all whispering out of earshot. Anything you all have to say, anything you have to ask, this is your chance. Have at it.”

“Well, since you’re offering,” Allura was the first one to speak up, frustrated. “Why are you putting Pidge on point when I have more experience? I’m not questioning your leadership, but it doesn’t make any sense if you’re trying to put everyone in the strongest position. Unless you're punishing me for something.”

Keith sighed, looking none too pleased with that question. But he’d said to put everything on the table.

“Because even when we do get a new Red Paladin, I already know I’m not going to trust them as much as I trust you all. Pidge is going to take Lance’s place as second in command. I need her to start learning how to take charge when I can’t.”

Pidge’s mouth dropped open, her eyes going wide. Her? _Her?_ Take Lance’s place? How could she even do that? Nobody could take his place, she certainly wasn’t going to be able to pick up where he’d left off as Keith’s supporting officer. She wasn’t the only one who was surprised. Hunk and Allura were shocked too, but Allura was the first one to recover.

“I see,” the fight had gone out of her and she looked off to the side of the screens. “So it really is completely final. He’s transferred permanently.”

“Come on guys, he’s not dead,” Keith ground out. “He’s on the Atlas. It sucks, I know, I hate it too. He was the buffer between me and you, he’s barely been officially gone a day and we’re already arguing. Let’s not do that. This is going to be good for him, this is going to help him be okay, and we need to support him after he made a hard choice. Together, as a team.”

Allura nodded and Pidge followed suit. Hunk looked back and forth between everyone.

“Okay. Well I have a related question,” he volunteered after a moment. “So are you and Lance, like, a thing?”

Pidge slid down in her seat and yanked the collar of her under-armor up over her mouth, eyes wide. Everyone stared at Hunk.

“What? You said anything! We’re supposed to leave him alone for a few days, it’s not like I can ask him yet. I just want to know if you guys are still close or still friends or still whatever so I know what kind of mood you’re going to be in for the next forever and a half.”

“No.” Was it Pidge’s imagination, or did Keith actually look embarrassed? Like Allura he looked away from the screens, pretending to adjust something down out of view. “No, we aren’t a “thing.” Yes, we’re still friends. And…yes, you can probably still complain to him when I get overbearing. Don’t worry, he’s already dragging me out this weekend to try and keep me from turning into some kind of monster tyrant over you all. Your guardian angel is still watching over you.”

“Oh. Well, in that case, there’s this single barista at the coffee shop near my house,” Hunk suggested. “He’s one of those people that spells everyone’s name wrong on purpose and flips off the problem customers. Totally up your alley, you two should meet.”

Pidge could tell Keith was starting to deeply regret opening up a question and answer session. She supposed if she was going to be taking Lance’s place she’d better start now, since he obviously wasn’t going to show up and be encouraging.

“I think it’s great that you’re hanging out,” she said honestly. “You should hang out with us now and then too, it was nice when you came by with him on Saturday. Maybe we can all do something for Halloween.”

“Oh! Halloween!” Hunk remembered. “One of us should have a party. Everyone can dress up, it’ll be cool.”

“What’s Halloween?” Allura was tentatively curious now, which was better than openly hostile.

Pidge looked up at Keith’s feed as Hunk launched into a detailed explanation of dressing up, watching horror movies, and eating tons of junk food. He looked back at her, catching her eye and mouthing _thank you_. She shot him a thumbs up and tapped the small alert that had just come up on her screen.

“Oh, company,” she announced to the group, making the notification larger. Green’s sensors brought up the image of a car parking over by the hangars. Krolia and Acxa were climbing out. “Your mom and Acxa. I wonder if it’s social or Blade business.”

“We should probably find out.”

The little green light in the corner of her screen turned red, then went off. The simulation mode was turned off, likely recorded in the logs as a complete failure since they’d spent the entirety of it on the ground. That was really going to throw off their average when she was calculating their performance later, she’d have to remember to remove it as an outlier.

They all returned to the hangars and disembarked. Allura was the first one out with Pidge at her heels, and Hunk trailing behind. Krolia smiled in greeting, but it faded when she saw her son approaching.

“Keith…”

She sounded so…disappointed? Upset? Pidge didn’t know what it could be about, the only visible difference in him was the color of his armor today. Pidge gave Keith a sideways glance, noting the dark circles under his eyes again. Those were the kind of thing a mother noticed, and moms did get upset when their kids didn’t take care of themselves.

“Not talking about it here,” Keith answered firmly. “Later. Everyone, the Blade knows Lance left, they’re going to try and get together some potential pilots for us before we make some big announcement to the public.”

Krolia nodded, looking instead to the Red Lion sitting silently in its hangar. She frowned, and Pidge didn’t have to be a psychic to know she didn’t like the idea of them being down a Paladin when war could break back out at any time.

“The Blade is getting stronger again, but new members are still spread out among the galaxies,” she added. “It will take them some time to send candidates. In the meantime, Acxa would like to try.”

Pidge and Allura exchanged a look. It wasn’t that either of them had any problem with Acxa normally, but it didn’t sit well with either of them to have one of Lotor’s former generals with a Lion in her hands. Especially Pidge. Pidge liked to keep files. She liked to know things about people, friends and enemies alike. And Acxa’s file had a great big empty space for the entire three years Voltron had been caught up in the time dilation after their fight with Lotor.

“Sure.” Everyone looked at Keith with surprise when he answered, even Acxa. He threw up his hands in surrender, a gesture so reminiscent of Shiro back in the beginning it was almost comical. “What? I’m not picking the pilot, Red is. Come on.”

Keith headed for the Red Lion’s hangar with Acxa and Krolia. Pidge took the opportunity to exchange a look with Hunk as well. They and Allura trailed along after them, leaving some distance between themselves and the three Galra.

Krolia walked on Keith’s right, Acxa on his left. Whenever he looked at her she smiled, and she leaned in close a lot. Pidge had noticed that about their interactions before, that Acxa seemed to be inviting him closer and Keith was only leaning back so far. Pidge had always assumed Keith liked Acxa because she was a pretty, half-Galra woman and it made sense that he’d want to be with someone who shared his heritage. Knowing what she did now, she could see the dynamic was much more awkward than that.

Keith was genuinely trying to be friends. Acxa was trying to seduce.

Krolia, surprisingly, minded her own business about the whole thing. Not something mothers tended to do when it came to their only sons. Pidge assumed she knew the truth, then, and was letting Keith handle it on his own terms.

“I feel kind of bad for her,” She whispered to Hunk. “She’s got it bad. Do you think he notices?”

“It’s been like a year, he’s not figuring it out anytime soon,” Hunk answered. “Leave it alone. We don’t need to wade into a Galran soap opera, we have enough to worry about already.”

They all arrived and stood together at the base of the Red Lion, Keith motioning for Acxa to continue forward. She looked back at them all then took a few hesitant steps, standing at the base of the great metal beast.

Pidge watched everything with some concern. They all knew they needed a new pilot, but part of her thought it was too soon. They’d only found out about Lance leaving yesterday and hadn’t even had a chance to see him yet, dropping somebody into his pilot’s seat this quickly felt like a disservice.

“She’s very temperamental,” Keith warned, crossing his arms. “It can take a few minutes, if it happens at all.”

Acxa closed her eyes and concentrated on Red, but Keith turned away so he wouldn’t have to see if she reacted to her. Pidge was glad she wasn’t in his shoes, that she had the luxury of being petulant over someone trying to take over the Lion still belonged to their friend in her mind.

Red’s eyes flashed and her head lifted. Pidge felt a sharp feeling in her throat as if she were going to cry, and when she looked left and right she saw her sadness reflected on Allura’s and Hunk’s faces as well.

Then Red’s particle barrier went up.

It happened so fast Acxa’s eyes were still closed. It slammed into her and sent her flying backward into Keith, who was facing the wrong way to see the disaster coming. Keith hit Pidge, ramming her back into Allura, and the four of them hit the ground in a pile.

Pidge was sandwiched between Alura and Keith. She groaned, rubbing the back of her head where it had knocked into Allura’s armor, and had a front-row seat to Keith’s unamused expression. Or would, if his hair wasn’t hanging down in his face.

“Ow,” Acxa groaned, rolling off of his back. “Not one to let you down gently, is she?”

Keith pushed himself up, pulling Pidge up to her feet after him, and they both helped Allura up off the tarmac. Red’s eyes glowed softly then went out, and Pidge almost got the feeling she was being smug.

“I told you she’s temperamental,” Keith reminded Acxa.

“You didn’t say she was going to fight me.”

“Fight me” is the default for both Keith and Lance, I think we should just assume it's the same for anything they've touched.” Pidge dusted herself off and reclaimed her dropped helmet. “We should probably mark the border of her particle barrier to make sure she doesn’t pull that one again.”

“Oh well. I would have liked to be able to fight from the Voltron team, but I guess I’ll have to stick to the Blade.” Acxa was rubbing one of her wrists, as if she’d hurt it in the fall. She nodded toward the hangar wall, where the red armor and bayard were stored behind bulletproof glass in a weapons rack. “Then again, I guess I look better in my own clothes than that.”

“We have to color code,” Hunk told her. “We hit our heads a lot, it’s helpful to have a clue which lion you’re supposed to be stumbling into when you’re concussed.”

“Well, every army has its uniform,” Acxa murmured. “The bayards are very handy though. They each turn into a different weapon, don’t they? I remember the red one being a gun.”

“It’s whatever suits the Paladin,” Allura answered, looking sadly over at the red bayard behind the glass. “Lance was advancing well with his…he also managed to summon an Altean broadsword.”

“He summoned a second weapon?” Keith’s eyebrows went up. Pidge could practically hear “wields pointy objects” being checked off on his internal list of boyfriend standards. “How is that even possible? You said the weapons form based on the Paladin, Lance has always been a sharpshooter.”

“Practice?” Allura supposed. “He spent a lot of time training while you were gone. I suppose maybe the rest of us were a little bit distant and wrapped up in our own things…we were just used to him going to bother you, I didn’t even notice when he started going to the training room instead.”

“The bayards can do some pretty impressive things, two weapons doesn’t sound that farfetched,” Acxa reasoned. “I’ve seen the black bayard teleport to you in battle. Does the red one do that?”

“No, the black one’s the only one ever to do that so far,” Keith summoned his bayard, the inky black sword solidifying in his hands. “Each lion has a specialty, that one’s Black’s.”

“Even if it did, it probably wouldn’t come when you call,” Hunk cracked. “Red doesn’t even do that herself half the time.”

Pidge saw Keith’s jaw clench. He turned his face away so they wouldn’t see, but she knew he was thinking about the Battle of the Last Stand.

“We should probably get back into the air,” she suggested. She wasn’t usually the one to suggest getting back to work, but it looked like that might be part of her job going forward. “We have to run those simulations under different formations.

“Don’t let us interfere,” Krolia said. “We did what we came here to do.” She gave Keith a brief hug and the two of them headed back to their car.

“Everyone back in their seats,” Keith ordered. Pidge was sure he was relieved that Red was being stubborn. “Pidge, back on point. Start out going west, like you’re running a patrol, then decide where we go based on what happens in the drill. Hunk, Allura, follow her lead.”

Pidge was even more nervous now than she had been before she’d known she was sort of being promoted. It felt like more than an exercise now, more than a “what if.” This was practice for the moment when she would have to take temporary command like Lance had done before.

Taking a deep breath she watched the little red light come up on her screen. It blinked once, twice, then turned green. Pidge threw on Green’s thrusters and took off for the sky.

* * * * * * * * * *

_Six months ago_ :

The first thing Pidge experienced when she regained consciousness was a stabbing pain between her eyes. The second thing was a sharp, slicing uptick in the pain when she heard Keith yelling for Lance. Unwelcome but not unusual, Keith always yelled at Lance. Everybody yelled at Lance, she just wished that it didn’t have to be happening right now so she wouldn’t throw up.

“Hunk, Pidge! Allura!”

_Ugh, what did I do?_ She wondered, opening her eyes blearily.

The ceiling that greeted her wasn’t the bland tan of the room she remembered falling asleep in at the Garrison, but a gray and black closet made of metal. He opened her eyes and sat up, looking around wildly.

“Sendak,” she whispered, the memory coming back to her.

“I’m here,” Lance called quietly. Pidge wasn’t sure, but he sounded strained.

“Yeah, me too!” Hunk shouted. “How long we been out?”

Pidge pulled up her viewscreen to run over the event log. There was a huge gap between the direct hit that had temporarily fried Voltron and her powering it back up now to check results. “Looks like we’ve lost about an hour.”

“What happened?” Allura was okay as well. Good. Things were looking bad, but at least they were all together.

“We’re on Sendak’s ship,” Keith answered. Pidge heard him slide down to sit on the floor. “Admiral Sanda…she sold us out.”

Pidge felt the electric tingle of shock run through her. Their own military leader had destroyed their one, thin chance at saving their planet? At saving their homes?

At saving her family?

“How could she?” Pidge demanded, anger starting to well up in her chest. How could anyone just hand their entire species over to a murderous invader?

“He said he’d leave Earth if he had the lions, but he lied to me,” Sanda’s voice filtered softly through the bars at the top of the cell. “This is all my fault. I wanted to protect my people, but now I’ve doomed them. I’ve doomed them all. I’m so sorry.”

_Protect her people_ , Pidge thought in disgust. _More like save her own skin. What kind of Admiral is so stupid they don’t know that an enemy with the upper hand always lies?_

“Admiral, what is Sendak’s plan?” Keith sounded far more levelheaded than she felt. Pidge was glad he asked before she had to, she didn’t think she would be able to keep her temper with this traitorous cow.

“Sendak is moving the zaiforge cannons into position. He’s going to destroy Earth. Please, you must know…”

Pidge stopped listening. She ripped off her helmet and threw it at the wall, covering her ears. She refused to be part of the audience for Sanda to fall on her own sword, refused to listen as she poured her hollow, glacier of a heart out for forgiveness.

Her mother and father, Lance’s family, Hunk’s parents. Shiro, Coran, the MFE pilots. The young soldiers in the Garrison, many of whom had been her classmates under her guise of Pidge Gunderson. They were all going to bite it because of this selfish witch.

“AUGH!” She yelled, dropping her hands from her ears to kick her helmet like a soccer ball when it bounced back. It slammed against the wall again, the noise echoing down the hall.

“Pidge!” Lance called, banging on the wall between their cells. “Calm down!”

“I am calm!” Pidge screamed, kicking the helmet again.

“I’ve spent a year—” kick, “—searching the universe—” kick, “—for my dad and brother—” kick. “I fought a Galra army a hundred times over, broke into the most secure prison in a galaxy, almost lost Keith to a clone of Shiro—” kick. “Almost died like thirty times, got stuck in a three-year time dilation after fighting a psycho who tried to murder us in the quintessence field only to find out the huge chunk of the universe we freed is fighting for its life, finally trekked back to Earth in barely powered lions after floating endlessly in space, and risked my life on a prayer only to find out Miss Knows Better Than The Entire World over there helped spring the trap that’s going to kill everyone I care about!" Kick. I!” Kick. “Am perfectly!” Kick. “ _Calm_!”

She kicked the helmet one last time and slid down to her knees, panting for breath. The cell suddenly felt very quiet without her screaming, she just felt cold and empty. Nobody said anything and she was glad, she didn’t want to be told she needed to relax.

The helmet was rolling around on the floor in front of her, scuffed on the sides from her abuse but no more the worse for wear. She put it back on and pulled her knees up, curling over them into a little ball. They all fell silent, having nothing to do but count down to what would probably be their own eventual demise. They were all locked in cells, their bayards didn’t work, and the Lions would be across the ship in the cargo or striker bays. There was no way out.

Pidge was on the 342nd digit of pi when the ship shook violently with what felt like an outside impact, startling Lance into shouting.

“What was that?”

“I think the Garrison is mounting a counter attack,” Keith answered.

Counter attack? The Garrison didn’t have the kind of firepower necessary for a real counter strike, they were a lame duck slowly losing power under the onslaught of an armada. Unless…

“My dad,” Pidge realized, hope blossoming up in her chest. “He launched the Atlas!”

The ship shook again, the empty hallway echoing with the faint sounds of laser fire being exchanged right outside of the hull. It had to be the MFE fighters, there weren’t any other jets that could come against Sendak’s ship.

“We need to get out there,” Keith murmured. Pidge heard him moving, trying to get his cell door open. “The Atlas can’t win this alone.”

“Guys! I have a thought,” Hunk called. Pidge stopped fiddling with her own door, standing up on her toes to try and peek out the high slit in the metal. “Remember how we were able to call the lions from Earth? Why can’t we do that now? They might be able to break us out.”

“Uh, calling the lions to us and having them break us out are two totally different things,” Pidge answered.

“I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m not even saying it’s possible, but we have to at least be willing to try.” Hunk paused, a sadness creeping into his voice. “Think of our families. Think of Earth.”

Pidge gave up on seeing out of the door. She slid down to sit on the floor, thinking of her mother and father. What would Matt do, all alone out in space, if they were all gone?

“Shiro said we’re capable of more than we realize,” Keith’s soft voice broke into her thoughts. “Maybe it’s worth a shot. Paladins…close your eyes. Connect with your lions.”

Pidge rested her hands on her lap and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the sounds of battle outside of the ship. She tried not to think about what was going on out there, about her father being on the Atlas and being fired on with everything Sendak’s armada could unload.

Instead she thought about Green. She thought about the quiet river on the jungle planet, the lazy trip to the temple where she first connected with her Lion. She had called to her then, a whisper on the air that didn’t just ask for anyone to come but specifically called her by name. As if she had known Katie Holt was coming, had waited ten thousand years just for her arrival.

_Go. Be great._

Pidge dredged up the memory of standing on top of the temple, of looking down into the darkness and knowing something was there. She held onto that moment, that instant when something had touched her deep in her chest and made her feel strangely complete.

_Go. Be great_.

Green was more than some advanced, ancient space ship. There was something about her, something alive, something that made Pidge feel safe and watched over whenever she was near. She was near now, though not as close as Pidge would like. If she could just stretch…

_Be great_.

The connection was like a magnet, as if Green had been doing nothing more than waiting for her call. It was like arms wrapping around her, a supportive embrace lifting her up, out of her cell and into the familiar cockpit. Next to her, Yellow and Blue were already moving and Black was beginning to rise. Pidge looked to red out of worry, waiting, relieved to see her begin to move a heartbeat later as well.

Five roars echoed through the Galra ship, shaking the entire vessel down to its metal bones.

* * * * * * * * * *

_Current day_ :

Pidge edged up the accelerator, pushing Green faster. Allura danced to her right in Blue and Hunk charged to her left with Yellow, following her movements and beginning to get the hang of reading the raw information Green fed to them instead of waiting for Pidge to translate.

They had started out clunky and slow, not really sure what to make of this new arrangement, but as the simulation steadily grew more and more difficult they were forced to rely on each other more and more.  Now they were down to the last Galra ship out of ten invading vessels, tired and on their last legs. Their Lions were fine, fully operational, flying around over New Mexico doing little more than fancy show work.

Their lasers didn’t really fire and they didn’t really take any impacts, but the simulation in the cockpit was real enough that Pidge had long since forgotten it was just a war game. Their Lions were down to twenty percent power, Hunk had a broken thruster, Allura’s bayard port had gotten fried in the last attack, and half of Pidge’s sensors had been incapacitated.

She was panting, sweat running down the back of her neck from the constant lurching in her seat and moving around the controls. Hunk and Allura weren’t much better as they yelled back and forth frantically trying to come up with some way to get rid of the final cruiser.

Pidge’s alert went off as the cruiser repaired its ion cannon. It took aim and fired…into the path where they were flying rather than where they’d been. She could hear the others screaming in panic as their lions all started to fall toward the ground, powerless and quickly gaining speed.

Pidge’s heart was in her throat. She worked her controls, trying to draw any last drop of power from anywhere she could. Nothing worked, it was just her and the ground speeding up to meet her. She slapped her hands over her eyes and tensed.

The feeling of falling slowed, eventually coming to a stop. A soft beep sounded from her console and Green righted herself, red alarm lights turning off and the normal green lighting returning. Pidge peeked between her fingers, looking up at her equally horrified and shocked teammates on the comms display.

“Just the simulation,” Allura panted. She was patting her chest as if trying to jumpstart her heart.

“That…was a little too real for me,” Hunk wheezed. “Seriously, I’m gonna have nightmares tonight.”

“How long were we up here?” Pidge wondered, wiggling her fingers to try and get some sensation back into them after so long gripping her controls.

“Three and a half hours,” Keith’s voice sounded over the comm. “Everybody come on back to the hangars.”

“Keith!” Pidge squeaked.

She wasn’t sure when she’d lost track of the Black Lion, but it had to have been back in the beginning. Now that she thought about it, Pidge couldn’t even remember at what point she’d last spoken with their leader. Hunk and Allura had been the two actively in her sight and her brain had just switched over to the two of them. She didn’t think she could really be blamed, though, there were plenty of real-life battles that had only involved two or three Lions.

The smooth, explosion-free flight back to the Garrison was welcome. As they came in for a landing she spotted the Black Lion out on the runway, seated and inactive. Keith was visible sitting on top of its head, waiting.

Pidge landed Green next to him, settling her in a sitting position before she opened the mouth and disembarked. Her Lion was smaller than the others, but before she could complain Black lowered himself down so Keith was a bit below her. Hunk and Allura followed suit, coming out onto their lions and pulling their helmets off, gulping in cool air after their very tedious exercises.

“Where were you?” Hunk asked, blinking owlishly at Keith. “When did you even leave?”

“Right here,” Keith answered, patting the top of Black. “Watching you all on my viewscreen. Rearranging the cruisers every now and then. I didn’t think it would be fair for me to participate in a simulation I have access to change things in, so I backed off as soon as the action started.”

He smiled at them, pulling the viewscreen back up again so he could read something.

“Three and a half hours, three lions. You guys took down nine cruisers with no backup, only part of a team, and no Voltron. That’s pretty awesome, I think.”

“We did do that, didn’t we?” Allura looked a mess, her hair all over the place and a small streak of blood on her face. Pidge thought she must have hit her head at some point during the exercise and split her lip. Still, she looked pleased with the results of their efforts. “Keith, how accurate are those simulations?”

“Taken from a year of Garrison observations of the Galra fleet during the invasion,” Keith answered. “And the Last Stand. I won’t lie to you, a lot of your success today was pure luck that some things went right instead of wrong, but that’s the same in any real fight.”

He closed down the viewscreen and stood up, looking around at them.

“How does everybody feel? Everyone all right? Nobody’s hurt?” He nodded in acknowledgement at the chorus of “no,” and pointed back toward the hangar with his thumb. “All right. Then how about you guys hit the showers and then we go for a late lunch on me? I think you all earned it today.”

“I think that’s the most sensible thing you’ve offered all day,” Hunk groaned thankfully, sliding back down to the entrance to his Lion.

“Hey guys?” Keith called. Pidge paused in climbing back down into her own cockpit. “You did good today. Really good. I’m proud of all of you.”

Pidge glanced over at the others and saw them both beaming with pride as disappeared into their Lions. Living with Shiro was having a good effect on Keith, slowly but surely. As she slid back into her pilot’s seat and turned Green back toward the hangars, she really hoped it would last.

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Sir, your kids are here.”

Shiro looked up from approving the day’s flight plan, not quite understanding what the ensign standing in his doorway was saying to him.

“Excuse me?”

“Your…the Lion pilots, sir?” He looked flustered. “Sorry. The white-haired girl referred to you as Dad.”

“Of course she did,” Shiro sighed, closing up the folder. He was going to make Lance do thirty laps for ever starting that Space Dad nickname in the first place. “All right. Let the little brats wait, I’ll be out in a minute.”

He left him, closing the door behind him, and Shiro went back to what he was doing. The Atlas took off three times a week to patrol Earth’s space perimeter and for the MFE pilots to run live drills and exercises. Sometimes the Lions, which would be based on the Atlas at some point, would join the takeoff and spend the day running their simulations in the upper atmosphere.

Usually Keith would let him know ahead of time if they would be joining them, but this was undoubtedly a last minute decision. In fact, it was one Shiro had expected, and he was ready to have the Lions join them. There was, after all, a particular event of interest to them occurring today.

Lance would be piloting an MFE live with the other fighter pilots for the first time.

Shiro finished preparing for takeoff and locked his office on the way out, making his way to the wide hall that led to the bridge. He found four colorfully armored teenagers there, all trying to look as if they didn’t have ulterior motives for their arrival.

“Stop telling people you’re my kids!” He said in greeting, dividing the thin stack of folders in his hands into two so he could smack both Pidge and Hunk in the back of the head at the same time. “None of you are attractive enough to qualify.”

“Your words say you’re not a parent, but your blood pressure says you have an entire pack of adopted children,” Hunk grinned, rubbing the back of his head.

“Technically only one adopted teenager,” Pidge corrected. “That time dilation added three years onto everyone’s ages, I’m the only one legally under twenty. But that makes it worse, because now he has a pack of adopted college kids.”

“Or I would, if _someone_ would enroll like everyone else,” Shiro said, looking pointedly at Keith.  

“Ha, no.” Was Keith’s only response.

Shiro moved past them to swipe his access card for the bridge, motioning for the four of them to go ahead of him. The crew was already in place for takeoff, only waiting on him, so he gave orders to begin. As the Atlas began slowly rising out of its docking bay, Shiro turned back to the others.

“So to what do I owe your presence today?” He asked sweetly, already knowing damn well why they were here. “Looking to give your new formations a try up in orbit?”

“We need all the practice we can get right now, Keith keeps dialing up the difficulty on the simulations,” Pidge lied so smoothly it was almost ridiculous. The innocence of her face only helped her case.

“Yeah, because I like not dying in an actual fight,” Keith defended. “So we need to start kicking the training into overdrive.”

He crossed his arms and glanced to the side, and Shiro knew he had him. Keith was trying to be casual, but he was looking at the status screen for the MFE pilots over by Veronica. Allura was doing the same thing, but she was even less skilled at being subtle when it came to Lance.

“It’s good to see you guys are really taking this to the next level,” Shiro praised, checking the time and motioning to Veronica. It was about time for the pilots to report. “Bring up the hangar feed for me.”

The smaller viewscreen in front of him switched over to a view of the hangar where the MFEs were stowed. He could see James talking to Nadia, Ina, and Ryan. As Shiro zoomed in on the pilots, Lance came through the entry door from the elevator.

Allura was absolutely terrible about hiding her enthusiasm. Keith was better, but he was visibly thrown off too. Shiro wasn’t blind, he had to agree that Lance was an attractive kid and he filled out the fighter pilot uniform very well.

He had spent the week so far in the simulator, getting a feel for the differences between piloting the Red Lion and an MFE. Shiro had to admit, when he was alone with nobody to show off to he was an incredible pilot, but if there was somebody present he started making mistakes. It was a trait documented in his file all the way back to his first days as a cadet, the manifestation of his need to be acknowledged.

The problem was in full display when Shiro had pulled the testing recordings and was able to witness it himself. It was almost impossible to believe the three witless cadets crashing their vessel on Kerberos repeatedly in the simulator were the same pilots he’d fought beside for the last two years.

Shiro had brought Lance into his office for a very long talk about the problem on Wednesday. On Thursday, his flight record was flawless. He had high hopes for today’s run.

“Oh good, new kid’s here,” James’ voice came over the speakers. “Time see if you’re any better than you were as a student, McClain. Not that you could be worse.”

“So you _were_ paying attention back then! I didn’t know you cared,” Lance quipped. “Looking nice today, Leifsdottir. Kinkade, my man, we still never got to go to the shooting range.”

“You’re on air, pilots,” Shiro warned before James could dig into Lance further. He wasn’t pleased about having somebody new added to his team, but until they had at least two more MFEs and new pilot graduates this was how it had to be.

On the feed, all five pilots fell into line, straightening up and saluting. Even Lance, which was fairly impressive in and of itself.

“We have the Lion pilots with us today so you’ll see them running their own drills, but there won’t be any team exercises. Focus on getting Lance acclimated to the group.”

“Oh good, his old C.O. is already here to take him back if he sucks,” James cracked.

“Excuse me!” Allura was appalled at the suggestion. “Lance is one of the finest pilots I’ve seen in ten thousand years, he’s going to do perfectly well!”

“Probably better than you can manage, Griffin,” Keith added.

“Wow, really? Never would’ve guessed from my experience,” James returned.

“Your experience?” Keith scoffed. “You mean wandering the halls picking fights because you were mad you were always second best?”

“Second best still trumps third rate cargo pilot any day.”

“He isn’t third rate anything!” Allura was getting furious. “He’s one of only two people in the history of the universe to ever be accepted as a pilot of two different Lions!”

“Wow, and look where it got him now,” James said smugly.

“How DARE you—“

“HEY!” Lance whistled, then looked up at the video feed from the control room angrily. “Claws away, kitty cats, I don’t need to be defended!”

Shiro looked back and forth between them all with wide eyes. He had gotten to know James Griffin pretty well over the last six months, and while he could occasionally have a touch of attitude the only person he’d ever seen him really get set off by was Keith. Shiro had a feeling this whole argument wasn’t actually about Lance at all.

“Okay guys, everyone calm down,” he said reasonably. “Pilots to your planes.”

They headed for the MFE fighters, boarding and preparing for the flight. Lance took the one at the far left of the hangar, one of the two new fighters that had just been loaded onto the Atlas last week. The sensors in his suit logged onto the fighter’s system, and his status readout lit up on the bridge’s monitor screen. One by one the pilots’ vitals all began being logged, small lights going on to show their communications systems were turned on.

“Atlas will be heading up to an altitude of fifty thousand feet and holding,” Shiro informed them. “We’ll have you on visual so we can see how you fly together. Run the basic drills, then we’ll see if we can move on to something more advanced.”

“Lance,” Keith had been scowling silently next to him, glaring at the video feed of the hangar. He didn’t look any more pleased now either.

“Hm?”

“Adelante.”

“Mm.” Lance’s response was curt, bordering on cold. For a split second Shiro saw something akin to hurt flit across Keith’s face, but he hid it quickly before anyone else could see.

“Maybe try and stay quiet if you’re going to watch from here?” Shiro suggested to the Paladins as the MFEs started to take off. “Allura, Keith, I know you mean well, but this is Griffin’s team. Lance will do fine, but you have to give him a chance to find his own footing.”

“He’s so infuriating,” Allura complained. “How does somebody belittle someone who’s supposed to be their teammate?”

“Have you met Lance and Keith?” Pidge asked. “They goaded each other into crashing their Lions into the ground at mach 5.”

“That’s different…”

“Allura, Lance will be fine,” Shiro directed his words to Keith as well while trying not to call him out on being upset. “Military units are tight knit groups, newcomers have to prove they belong there. And believe me, Lance is a showman. He knows how to play to a crowd, he’ll do all right.”

“You guys didn’t really know Lance as a cadet,” Hunk offered. “He could be a screw up sometimes, but everybody liked him. Griffin never had a problem with him before, he’s probably just posturing because it's Lance's first day.”

Allura didn’t look convinced, but Shiro was glad when she backed down. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain to her that having them come to his defense instead of sticking up for himself would make Lance’s life that much harder.

The bridge of the Atlas fell into its usual hum of routine while Shiro monitored the drills going on down below. The MFEs started with the basics, falling into and out of different formations and practicing common maneuvers. It was child's play for them but James stuck to it anyway. He knew how to work in a new addition slowly, even if he did get offensive about it.

Lance, for his part, did well. He followed all orders immediately and without complaint and kept up with the shifting formations admirably for a first day flier. Eventually the patterns started to get more complicated and the movements trickier, falling lower and lower in the sky until they had terrain features as obstacles. Lance started to have trouble predicting where he should be in the formation at such high speed, at one point almost clipping a cliff face with his wing.

“Tighten it up, McClain,” James warned. “Don’t be the rookie who loses a wing on the first day.”

“No worries, I don’t usually start wrecking things until day two,” Lance returned. “I got this.”

“Yeah? Hey Risavi, he’s got this.”

“That’s definitely what the man said,” Nadia chimed in. “Maybe we should see how much of this he’s got.”

“Anything you can throw at me, _sweetheart._ ”

“Calm it down, kids,” Shiro warned. “Are you fighter pilots, or second graders on the playground?”

“Fighter pilots,” James answered innocently. “Some of the best in the world, right McClain? Hey, Lieutenant Kogane, what do you think? Can your boy handle some real flying?”

“Keith,” Shiro warned softly.

“Absolutely.” Too late, Keith took the bait. None of this harassing was really about Lance at all, it was just James’ way of getting under Keith’s skin. “He’s twice the pilot I’ll ever be, and we all know how much better I am than you.”

“Vote of confidence is in,” James scoffed. “Let’s see how wrong you are. All right team, Delta maneuver. McClain, across the quadrant and past the lake bed, then back to the Atlas. Let’s see if you can match my time.”

James’ plane dove, followed by Nadia, Ryan, and Ina in tight formation. Lance was an instant slower, his heart rate jumping on the monitor.

“Griffin, McClain wasn’t given your advanced maneuvers,” Shiro said sharply. “He doesn’t know Delta. Pull up.”

“Come on, anyone who’s twice the pilot Kogane is can handle this,” James cajoled.

“I said pull up,” Shiro ordered.

“No,” Keith interrupted loudly so all the pilots could hear. “Griffin wants to be embarrassed, let him be embarrassed.”

“I’m giving direct orders! Pull up!” Shiro exclaimed, shouting over them all. “Lieutenant Kogane, off the bridge.”

“But—“

“ _Off the bridge_! Griffin, Risavi, Leifsdottir, Kinkade, McClain! Pull up and resume basic training maneuvers.”

On the viewscreen, Nadia, Ryan and Ina complied, their MFEs leveling out and slowly starting to rise. Lance’s began to as well at first, but when James ignored the command he resumed the dive to catch up.

“What are they doing?” Allura gasped.

“Pissing contest,” Shiro muttered. “Griffin!”

“James’ radio just put us on mute,” Veronica sighed. “So did Lance’s.”

_If they don’t kill themselves, I’m going to murder them both._ Shiro thought. _And Keith._

The two MFEs were clearly visible on the Atlas’ high powered cameras, both pulling up and leveling out only seconds before they crashed to the ground. They skimmed the terrain, James’ plane laying the path and Lance’s adjusting to follow. It was a very dangerous game, flying that low in an area full of trees, cliff sides, and any number of other hazards. These were maneuvers James had done in this area before, but Lance didn’t know the lay of the land.

James hit the edge of a cliff and turned his nose down again, hugging the side as he dove toward the dry lake bed below with Lance right behind him. Once again they pulled up at the last minute, flying at ground level and swerving to avoid outcroppings of stone and large piles practically fossilized old driftwood. Up ahead of them was a wall of rock with a hole in it just wide enough for one MFE. Even then, the plane would have to be at a very odd angle and it would only barely make it through. Shiro realized what James was pulling and his stomach dropped.

This was the part of the Kerberos mission simulation where Lance always crashed his ship.

“Pull up, Lance,” Shiro murmured. “You can’t make it through at that speed.”

“How are you doing over there, McClain?” James’ voice was still audible over the radio even though the two pilots couldn’t hear the Atlas.

Silence from Lance. The fighters were closing the distance between the rock wall, they would have to pull up very soon and at a very steep climb if they wanted to avoid crashing.

“Pull up,” Shiro whispered. “Pull up, Lance.”

“Gonna have to give in soon if you want to make it over this cliff, McClain,” James prodded. His own plane rose up a few feet as he prepared to pull up.

Lance’s plane stayed steady and he didn’t say anything. Shiro looked over at the status screen, his vitals were all over the place. His heart rate was through the roof.

“No, no, no,” Shiro murmured. “Can we override these planes from here? I think he has target fix!”

“What?” Allura looked at Veronica, who was starting to panic, then back at the rest of the team. “What’s target fix?”

“Target fixation, it’s when a pilot gets so focused on avoiding an obstacle he crashes into it,” Keith said breathlessly. He had only made it to the doors of the bridge before the real stupidity had kicked in, now he was staring at the screen with wide eyes. “What are you doing, Lance? This isn’t your Lion, it’s a plane…pull up…”

“McClain.” James’ voice was firm, but now it had a trace of concern. There were only seconds left to avoid a head-on collision. “You still going?”

“Still going?” Lance finally responded, his voice casual and completely at odds with what was on the vitals feed. Shiro heard Allura sigh heavily with relief beside him. “I’m speeding up.”

Time was up. Griffin pulled up even as Lance hit his booster, fueled by a recent shipment of faunatonium. Griffin’s plane went completely vertical, barely managing to not skim the cliff face as it shot up into the sky with how close he had come.

Lance’s plane barrel rolled to the right at high speed, sliding through the opening in the rock so closely the wings clipped the side, sending a spray of rocks and pebbles shooting out the other side along with the MFE. It finished the spin as it came out the other side, righting itself before shooting up into the sky.

Still on boost, Lance passed the top of the cliff just as James came up on the other side, shooting past him. The two pilots sped toward the Atlas and Shiro shoved away from his console, turning to leave the bridge.

“You, you, and you, stay here,” he said firmly to Hunk, Pidge and Allura before pointing angrily at Keith. “You. With me.”

Keith was pale as they stepped out and headed for the elevator down to the hangars. He was too good of a pilot to not know exactly how dangerous Lance’s stunt was, or how close he’d just come to getting himself killed. One inch to the left or right and that jet would have been a fireball.

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispered when they were in the elevator. “I didn’t think—“

“You didn’t think,” Shiro agreed sharply. He was absolutely furious with all three of them, but doing his best to remain composed. He was a commander now, not a pilot who could go off on a tirade when angry. “This is a military ship, not a high school parking lot. You want to brawl with the quarterback over the prom queen’s honor, you do it on your own time. When you’re here you get your crush in check and conduct yourself like an officer.”

They reached the hangar bay and the doors slid open. Shiro stepped out but blocked Keith from following, leaning in and punching the button for the lower bay where the Lions were stowed.

“You’re confined to your Lion for the duration of this trip. Do not hail, radio, or even text any of my MFE pilots. I’ll send your team down so you can launch and do your job.”

He pulled back and let the doors closed on Keith’s shocked face. If he wasn’t so angry he’d be sorry about it, but what happened today could not be repeated. Even if he still thought of them as kids, they were soldiers and they needed to behave like it.

Across the hangar the two MFEs came in to land. Shiro waited in silence for them to disembark, annoyance creeping in on top of his anger at the stupid grins on both their faces.

“Getting along now?” He asked, crossing his arms and shooting a look between them. They both immediately jumped to attention and saluted when they realized he was there. “Impressed each other? All good friends? Good, I’m glad. And you know what? You’re both about to become even better friends. Master Sergeant!”

A nearby soldier saluted, coming forward. Shiro gestured to the two pilots.

“Sir!”

“Airman Griffin and Airman McClain have a little too much energy today. Take them down to the training deck and help them get it out of their systems. Make it something nice and advanced, since they’re both big men. No breaks.”

“Yes sir. Airmen, after you.”

“Yes sir,” James and Lance both said in unison. The two idiots had the presence of mind to keep their mouths shut otherwise. They both knew they were in big trouble, the only question now was how badly they were going to suffer for it.

Once the two of them were gone with the sergeant, Shiro ordered their planes be recharged then put Nadia in charge of the other three finishing their exercises. He returned to the bridge and sent the other Paladins down to Keith.

He had to take a few moments to calm down before he took command again, turning his attention to Nadia, Ina and Ryan. At least some pilots around here knew how to behave.

* * * * * * * * * *

The report came back from the hangars that the MFEs were fine, no damage except some scuffs on Lance’s right wing from the cliff face. Nobody was dead, nobody was maimed, and Shiro managed to let go of his anger by the time the Atlas landed and docked.

He called down to the training room to finally release James and Lance, after six hours of having them driven into the floor, then disembarked to go to his office in the main building.

He had decided not to file disciplinary reports. He knew all three of these young men, very well, and knew this wasn’t their normal behavior. He didn’t want to ding their records over something so ridiculously stupid…this time.

Out the window of the hallway as he walked through the building he could see the Lion hangar, and the four ships coming down to land and move into their bays for the evening. He hadn’t spoken to Keith again, he didn’t know how he was taking things yet, but he bet he was going to find out tonight.

Shiro’s office was three doors down from Keith’s, but he tended to spend a lot more time in his. He swiped his access card and let himself in, leaving it open when he went to drop down at his desk. What he really wanted was a cup of coffee and some peace and quiet, and maybe to just be a pilot again. Shiro had never imagined himself being a commander, or a captain of his own space craft, sometimes he felt like he was drowning in all the drama and paperwork.

He heard Keith’s voice in the hallway speaking to a passing clerk, and waited to see if his brother would come confront him about today’s incident. But he didn’t, it sounded like he went into his own office instead. And he would likely stay there until it was time to leave for the weekend, then lock himself in his room so they didn’t have to speak when they got home.

Shiro returned to his paperwork. For a while there were no sounds but the ticking of his clock on the wall and the soft instrumental music streaming from his computer. He almost forgot about the brainless testosterone fest he’d been through that morning when he heard Keith’s voice in the hallway.

“Lance!”

Shiro paused, raising his head to listen. It sounded like Lance had been walking past the office and was spotted through the open door rather than an intentional meeting. Keith apologized for his earlier display, albeit haltingly and awkwardly, but Lance didn’t want to talk about it. The whole exchange sounded kind of testy, nowhere near the closeness Shiro was used to from the two of them.

“Look, about this weekend,” he heard Keith say. “I’m not really feeling a movie.”

“You’re canceling on me?” Lance asked. “Come on man, I already bought tickets.”

“I don’t think Allura’s busy, she’d probably go with you.”

“I don’t want to go see a movie with Allura, I planned hang out time for you and me.”

“Well I’m sorry, I don’t feel like going out this weekend.”

“Ugh, whatever. You’re such a pain to deal with, I really am going to stick you in a freaking wormhole.”

Shiro heard footsteps coming toward his doorway as they parted ways and dropped his eyes back down to his computer screen. He pretended to be filling out a form until he heard the soft knock, and looked up to find Lance waiting for permission to enter. He was back in his civilian clothes, his hair damp from hitting the showers.

“Come in.”

Lance stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Shiro gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk and pushed his keyboard out of the way, leaning back in his seat.

“So how was your afternoon?” He asked. Lance winced.

“Well, we did push-ups until we threw up. Then ran laps until we threw up. Then did more push-ups until…you know what? We threw up a lot,” Lance answered, flopping down into the offered chair in exhaustion. “But I guess we deserved it.”

“You guess?” Shiro prompted, raising an eyebrow.

“I know we deserved it,” Lance corrected. “I just wanted to come by and say I’m sorry. On the record, and off. It wasn’t exactly the greatest stunt to pull on my first day in a fighter.”

“I accept your apology,” Shiro said magnanimously. “But you and James will still be spending all of Monday and Tuesday scrubbing down the Atlas hull by hand.”

“Yeah, I guess we deserve that too,” Lance sighed.

“Lance, you’re a great pilot,” Shiro praised, relaxing his stern demeanor a bit. “I don’t approve of what you pulled today, as an officer. But as one top pilot to another, you’re probably going to be a legend down in the lower ranks for it. I did a lot of running until I threw up as punishment for some of the stunts I pulled in my day, too.”

“Did they have you washing planes?” Lance asked, managing the ghost of a smile.

“Adam and I were practically part of the janitorial crew by the time our superiors were done with us,” Shiro admitted. “But some people end up with worse than cleaning duty. They end up paralyzed, or brain damaged, or dead. I’ve seen my fair share of those, and I do not want to see you or any of the other pilots hurt like that. You could have been killed today…with your friends and your sister all watching it happen live.”

Lance didn’t always think of his own safety, but that seemed to sink in. The thought of Veronica watching him slam into a rock face at faunatonium speed made him look ill; Shiro doubted he’d really thought about it from that angle before now.

“It was pretty dumb,” Lance looked down at his hands. “But it won’t happen again.”

“I hope not.”

“It won’t,” Lance insisted. “I spent the afternoon thinking about why I did it. Thinking about some things I really don’t like thinking about. If I’m going to be a good fighter pilot I can’t let my buttons be pushed, so I have to know what my buttons are.”

“All right. And what did you come up with?” Introspection wasn’t a common Lance McClain trait. Shiro knew he was capable of it, he just really didn’t like to do it. He was extremely curious to know what kind of personal reason Lance could come up with for almost slamming a multi-million dollar space jet into a wall on its maiden flight.

Lance looked back down at his hands. “Can I ask you a personal question first? It’s…I don’t have anyone else to ask.”

“Sure,” Shiro allowed. The day was over, there was no need to keep up the Commander and Pilot roles down to the last minutes. “As long as you understand that I might refuse to answer if it’s too personal.”

Lance nodded. He took a deep breath.

“When did you…how…I…”

There was absolutely no confidence in Lance’s words or posture. He looked almost scared, for lack of a better word, something Shiro hadn’t seen in him often. And he struggled so hard with the question, like once it was out there would be no taking it back and pretending it was never asked. Shiro tried to figure out what would have him so worked up after he’d casually just barely avoided suicide earlier in the day when it hit him.

_I don’t want to go to the movies with Allura._

_I don’t have anyone else to ask._

The fear of what the question might reveal, what might come out that he could never hide again. 

Lance had a very large family and a lot of friends. There was literally only one question he could have that he couldn't turn to any of those other people for. Shiro got up out of his seat, shrugging off his uniform jacket. He hung it on the back of his chair and made his way around the desk, spinning the chair next to Lance around to face him as he sat down. He let the persona of superior officer go, not wanting this conversation to have any traces of antagonism.

“Are you trying to ask me when I knew I was gay?”

The red that crept up Lance’s neck was uncharacteristic. Summer had just ended and he was deeply tanned on top of his natural complexion, the color was vivid indeed to be visible. He didn’t look up from his hands and his breath became more shallow, like he was staving off internal panic.

“I’m sorry. I know that’s really, really private. I just…did you always know? Did you wake up one morning and realize? Was it a specific thing that happened or a specific person? I don’t know how these things are supposed to work.”

“Well, it depends on the person,” Shiro said carefully. “There’s no right way or wrong way of figuring out who you are, Lance. Some people know when they’re young, some people don’t have it dawn on them until they’re older. Some people go through their lives for a long time liking the opposite sex then have the realization they might like more than that.

“I sort of knew when I was about thirteen, but I didn’t want to think about it. I was pretty busy with my studies at the Garrison and learning to be a pilot, I was able to gloss over it for a while and pretend I didn’t know. I kind of had to face the facts when I fell in love, though.”

“With Professor Wolfe,” Lance inferred. Shiro felt a sharp pang at hearing his former flight partner’s name. “He taught my flying class in first year. I used to go see him sometimes, to talk outside of class, Adam was never too busy to listen. He stopped me from quitting the pilot program once…everyone kept telling me the only reason I was there was because Keith was expelled, Adam was one of the only people who thought I could be something even back then.”

Lance looked so incredibly sad when he said it, wrapping his arms around himself. It had never occurred to Shiro that Lance, of all people, would mourn Adam. There were students his late fiance had personally mentored much like he himself mentored Keith, Shiro knew that, but he had never known who or in what way. Lance was so incredibly tight-lipped about his private thoughts and feelings, constantly keeping them hidden under different masks. That he was on a first-name basis with Adam was a surprise.

A nice one, though, to realize somebody he was close to now had also been close to the love of his life. To know Adam had taken care of someone he had come to think of as family.

“Adam caught me completely off guard,” Shiro admitted, smiling fondly at the memory. “We came into the Garrison in the same year, both wanting to be pilots. It drove him insane that I was top of all my classes and he was always number two, it turned into a competition between the two of us. We got a lot of detention for some pretty epic fights. Completely loathed each other.”

“That doesn’t really surprise me,” Lance managed a tiny smile. “He wasn’t exactly the kind of person to just sit around instead of going after what he wanted. When did you decide you didn’t hate him?”

“Well, when we were seventeen we got into such a knock down, drag out fight one day that our counselor handcuffed us together and wouldn’t let us loose,” Shiro recalled. “We were forced to work together for everything and none of the teachers gave us any slack. On top of it we were required to complete the obstacle course together in _less_ than the class record at the time to get free.”

“Wait, was the obstacle course the same then as it is now?” Lance asked, eyes widening when Shiro nodded. “Holy crow, how long did that take?”

Shiro smiled proudly. “Only a week.”

“No way!”

“We were two of the best at everything and we knew it,” Shiro reminded him. “Well, I knew it, Adam was a little like you. He needed that label to feel confident in himself and didn’t really understand how great he was back then. But we decided to call a truce and turn our spite at each other into spite at the counselor, so we started sneaking out of the dorm at night and practicing the course.”

“And you guys became friends after?” Lance relaxed some, turning his chair to face Shiro’s. He was glad, he didn’t want the younger man to be uncomfortable here.

“Not quite. There was still some competition there, but it died down a lot. After we graduated we were being assigned to our new unit there was going to be some friction over which of us would lead it, but he cut it off by deferring to me. And I knew how good he was, so I was happy to have him as my right hand man.

“About a year later it hit me that I had a thing for him. I had to do a lot of thinking about things I’d been ignoring for most of my life and even tried to pull away from him some. I finally confessed after the idiot clipped a wing off his jet trying to avoid a new pilot who locked up and flew into his path. We were pretty low to the ground and he wasn’t permanently hurt in the crash, but seeing him in a hospital bed hit me pretty hard.”

“How did he take it?” Lance asked. He was still pretty visibly embarrassed by the conversation, but he was curious. There were things he wanted and needed to know. “I never really asked him anything like that. I figured it was private.”

“He took it pretty well, actually,” Shiro couldn’t help a small laugh. “He told me he’d had a crush on me since our second year, but that he didn’t know how to handle it so he just kept picking fights. We’d already known each other for years, things got pretty serious pretty fast after that.”

“That’s kind of sweet,” Lance supposed. “If you ignore all the face punching that probably went on, anyway.”

“Yeah, there was a lot of face punching,” Shiro agreed. He cast a thoughtful glance up at Lance, who was now biting his thumbnail and looking down toward the floor. “So is there something you want to talk about? Some reason you’re suddenly asking me about this?”

Lance heaved a sigh and looked up, his hand dropping away. He looked lost, which mixed terribly with how tired he probably was after the stress of his day.

“I’ve had a girl who was kind of interested lately,” he admitted. “A really, really great girl. Everything about her is perfect…she’s beautiful and she’s really smart and she knows how to take care of herself. She’s like, everything I always imagined the perfect girl for me would be. I really like her, a lot.”

“I’m sensing that there’s a “but” here.”

“ _But,_ something about the way she’s started acting toward me—romantically, I mean—made me realize that there’s someone else who’s sort of been in my corner for a lot longer. Someone who isn’t a she. Like, I never realized how good it made me feel to be smiled at or encouraged by this guy, or how much I relied on having him around. But now I compare how he’s always treated me to how this girl is treating me now and I can see it’s the same. It makes me feel the same.”

Shiro straightened up a little in his seat, eyes widening as he began to put two and two together. Lance wasn’t really looking at him though and didn’t see it, he had gotten up and started pacing and missed the older man’s reaction.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it at all, because why stress myself out when I don’t have to? But once I got sick and I was spending a lot of time laying in a hospital bed waiting for tests to run, I didn’t have anything to do but think. And the more I think about it the more I realize…you know what? He’s just as gorgeous and just as smart, and I have more in common with him than with her. I like it when he smiles at me like that, it makes me feel good when he's around.”

He was pacing like a caged animal now, starting to ramble as it all came out in a confused jumble. Lance must have been bursting at the seems to finally get it all out, to finally hear it said out loud in words to help himself sort through it.

He was being very careful to not give any hints as to who he was talking about. Too bad he didn’t know Shiro was already all too aware of the little triangle between Lance, Keith, and Allura.

“It’s just crazy though, how do you feel this way  for a long time and literally never notice? I never realized I liked guys at all! I’ve always noticed attractive ones, I’ve always _thought_ they were attractive, but it never occurred to me for even a second that maybe it’s a little out of the norm to see men and women the same like that. It never once crossed my mind that this guy might be interested, or that I might be interested back. I never had a clue, how does that even happen?”

“Well, bisexuality isn’t really as visible of a thing as other preferences,” Shiro offered. “It’s usually either gay or straight, so don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t understand it was a thing. We know what we see. You like girls, why would you ever assume otherwise until you were presented with it?”

“I don’t know what to do now,” Lance admitted softly, starting to chew on his thumbnail again as he paced. “I feel like I’m stuck between what I think I want and what I think I need. I don’t know anything about dating men, I don’t know how that works!”

Shiro didn’t think Lance knew anything about how dating women worked either, at least not in his experience, but he left that one alone.

“It’s not too different from anything else. You hold hands, you hug, you kiss. The internet has the basics for everything else, from there you kind of decide how to proceed together.” He pushed out the chair and motioned for Lance to stop pacing and sit down. “I can’t tell you who to choose or what to do. All I can do is assure you that you’re perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with what you like, or with taking this long to realize what you like. It sounds like you have two good options, and you shouldn’t be scared of picking one of them just because you never pictured them as being a possibility before.”

He looked up at the clock and then out his window, seeing it start to get darker outside.

“Did you ride in with Veronica today?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, come on, you had a long day,” Shiro advised, rising and turning off his computer. “I’ll give you a ride home, we’ll stop and grab some coffee or something and talk some more somewhere more comfortable. If you want to.”

Lance looked up at the clock as well and also got up, nodding a little. He still seemed uncertain and a little bit out of sorts, but if Shiro could help him with this then he would.

“Yeah. That would be good.”

Shiro put away anything sensitive on his desk and locked the office door behind them, quietly wondering how this whole sordid affair was eventually going to play out.


	7. Chapter 7

“So what movie are you seeing?”

Lance pushed himself up from where he lay flat on the floor, looking over the top of his messy bed to find Veronica standing in his bedroom doorway. She was here visiting their mother, and while it wasn’t unusual for her to poke her head in and say hello he was immediately suspicious. Her smile was a little bit too sweet today, in that way it got when she wanted something.

“None, if I can’t find my boots,” he answered, dropping back down to the floor and sticking his head under his bed. “Do you see the black ones over there anywhere?”

“I saw them a few minutes ago,” Veronica gestured over her shoulder. “Clomping around on little feet.”

“Thieves!” Lance declared, using the bed to climb back to his feet. He leaned out the doorway past Veronica, cupping a hand around his mouth. “Hey! Chiquito! You got something of mine?”

A giggle came from the kids’ bedroom. After a moment his nephew Sylvio came out into the hall, wearing Lance’s boots and one of his shirts.

“Let me guess,” Lance grinned, meeting him halfway down the hall and picking him up. “You’re dressed up for Halloween. As…the coolest jet fighter pilot in the world!”

“Yes!”

“Yes! I knew it!” Lance crowed, hugging him tight. He loved being an uncle, the kids were so damn cute, and even when they were being annoying he absolutely adored them.

He went into the kids’ room to find his niece playing dress up with her princess costume. Rachel was in the corner, supposed to be on babysitting duty but talking on the phone to one of her friends. Lance put the little boy down on the bed and pulled the boots off him.

“Sorry, I have to confiscate these,” he apologized. He tucked them under his arm to free his hands and straightened the too-big shirt, smoothing the collar down. “You can borrow the shirt for a little bit longer though. Lookin’ sharp, little man.”

He winked and let himself out of the room, returning to his own to pull his boots on and try to neaten his shower-damp hair.

“It’s some horror movie,” he finally responded to Veronica’s question now that he wasn’t distracted. The fact that she was still waiting patiently in his bedroom when he came back made him even more suspicious. Normally she would have wandered off when she saw he was busy. “That one about the guy stuck in a loop where he keeps getting killed by the monsters and he has to break the cycle.”

“Oh! “Eternal?” I want to see that,” Veronica grinned. “I’m going out with Allura, we should meet up and go together.”

“I bought the tickets Tuesday, I think this show is sold out already,” Lance answered quickly. He wasn’t actually sure that was the truth, to be honest, but he wasn’t going to give her hope there were available seats. He wanted to spend some time alone with Keith, he didn’t really want his sister and Allura to come along.

“Are these them?” Veronica asked. She picked up the movie tickets from his nightstand and started searching the showtime with her phone.

Lance tried to concentrate on combing his hair, pretending not to pay attention. There wasn’t even a guarantee he was going to the movies at all, he still had to see how his upcoming efforts were going to play out. If Keith stuck to his guns and didn’t want to go out, he might end up spending the time with Hunk and Pidge instead.

“If” being the operative word. He didn’t really get to hang out with Keith a lot outside of work, not like he had back in the Castle of Lions. Even then it hadn’t happened often, but they got along pretty well sometimes and he had to admit he missed it. A lot. He wasn’t about to let Keith cancel on him last minute if he could help it.

“Damn, it is sold out,” Veronica affirmed. He tried not to look too happy about it.

“Sorry.”

“Well, it’s an early show,” she noted. “We’ll still be out when it’s over, maybe you can join us.”

“Maybe.”

Lance was very careful not to commit to her. He was getting the feeling she had set aside time specifically for this exchange, he just wasn’t sure what was up.

“Or, you could skip that movie and we can all go to a different one together,” Veronica tried. “I know you’re not big on girl movies, but there’s a rom-com out that’s supposed to be funny. You might like it.”

“ _You_ don’t like girl movies. Why are you so dead set on us all going togeth—hold on.” Veronica’s mission suddenly became obvious. “Are you trying to set me up with Allura?”

“Come on, Lance, she’s a literal princess!” Veronica exclaimed, completely dropping the innocent act and stomping one foot. “You’ve been feeling better this week, I can see it. You’re back to the old Lance again, and she’s been so worried about you for the last six months. She’s gorgeous, smart, and she kicks ass…you need to cancel your dude night and take this girl out ASAP, before she realizes her mistake.”

“You don’t become a Princess-In-Law if I end up with a princess, you do understand that, right?” Lance asked.

“She’s my friend, I care about her feelings,” Veronica sniffed. “Even the terrible ones about you being cool.”

Lance grinned and shook his head a little. He stood up, grabbing his wallet and keys, and the jacket Allura had finally returned to him.

“I’m sorry, Veronica. You’re right, Allura is beautiful and smart and she does kick ass,” he felt a pang when he said it, thinking back to that beautiful face smiling at him. Even just the memory made him feel happy. “But I’m not ready to date right now.”

“Lance, as your big sister I feel like I have a responsibility to make sure you know when you’re being dumb. Now. You’re being it now.” She crossed her arms even as she moved out of his way to let him out of the room. “You’ve been through a lot, way more than anybody should ever be asked to go through, and you deserve to be happy.”

“Thanks,” Lance mumbled. “I’ll get there eventually, don’t worry.”

There was plenty more he could have said in response, but her words took him back to that weird experience floating in deep space. Some kind of shared fever dream about a game show, being stuck in the spotlight and repeatedly having it pointed out to him that he was dumb. Like he wasn’t already aware.

Space madness was no joke.

His mother was in the kitchen, he kissed her on the cheek on his way out of the house and went out the back to where his car waited in the driveway. Lance slid into the driver seat and took a moment to collect himself in the quiet. There was nothing to be nervous about here, he and Keith were friends. More than friends, brothers in arms. This was just a chance to get a little closer, get to know each other on a different level. Spend time together without something trying to kill them, have some fun.

A chance for Lance to test the waters. Maybe figure out how interested Keith really was, or if he had just read everything wrong.

Or maybe not. As he backed out of the drive his brain went to the default, which was to go over everything that could go wrong. Technically Keith was three years older than him now instead of just one, which wasn’t a big deal when you were an adult but could be a lifetime with teenagers. What if they didn’t get along outside of confinement the way he assumed they would?  What if they didn’t have as much in common as he thought?

Keith was one of the few people who really encouraged him and didn’t treat him like just a goofball. He didn’t want to lose that. And now that he looked back and realized they were there, he didn’t want to lose the soft smiles or the lighthearted teasing either.

_Seriously…how did I have it this bad for the socially awkward dipstick and never notice?_ He wondered. _I called him bigger, cooler, and grizzled to his face in public. That many adjectives probably should’ve been a clue._

Willful ignorance, maybe. It hadn’t escaped his notice that he was the only one regularly moping after Keith left to join the Blade, but he’d refused to think about it at the time. He focused on other things instead: performing, Allura, training. The internet said overcompensation was common for people who weren’t ready or able to admit they liked more than one gender, maybe he was one of those. He spent a lot of time building his flirtatious, “loverboy” image, maybe he’d just been too stubborn to knock it down with change.

Well, he couldn’t honestly say he was ready to knock it down now, either. But he needed to find out if there might be something worth knocking it down for.

The apartment complex where Shiro and Keith lived was only a few miles away. He was pulling up in front of number 143 within ten minutes, where he parked and took another moment to gather his courage. Keith’s motorcycle was parked out front and so was Shiro’s car, but he knew neither of them were expecting him.

Taking a deep breath, he got out and approached the door. He was just reaching for the doorbell when there was a soft ‘pop,’ and then a dog biscuit fell down by his feet. That was his only warning before a huge pile of fur and excitement hit him from behind, slamming him into the door head first and lashing his face with a slobbery tongue when he fell within reach.

“Ack! No! Kosmo, NO!” Lance squealed, trying to guard his face. He rolled over on his back and stretched up a leg, kicking the doorbell. “Ow! Watch the claws, you fluffy elephant!”

He continued to shield his face with both hands, unable to keep himself from giggling at the tickle of sloppy space wolf kisses. When the apartment door finally opened Kosmo backed off so Lance could sit up, his carefully combed hair now a mess and his shirt askew. He looked up to find Shiro standing in the doorway.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Shiro answered. Maybe it was Lance’s imagination, but he thought the older man might be holding back a smirk. “I thought I heard you guys cancel yesterday.”

“No, you heard Keith cancel,” Lance hauled himself up from the ground, smoothing down his clothes as Kosmo trotted past them back into the apartment. “But he’s not the boss of me anymore, so here we are.”

He and Shiro had been at a café near Hunk’s house for a few hours the previous evening, continuing their talk from Shiro’s office. Now Lance was showing up at his apartment to harass his little brother into going to the movies with him, and it likely  wouldn’t be long before Shiro figured out exactly who the guy he had been talking about was. Hopefully he had a little time, but definitely not long.

“He’s brooding in his room over me grounding him in his space cat yesterday, I should probably tell you to come back later,” Shiro glanced over his shoulder into the apartment, then moved out of the way and opened the door further. “But he’s never been the boss of me, so come on in.”

Lance had never been to their place before, and it honestly wasn’t what he expected. With Shiro being a career military man and Keith being so minimalist, the sheer coziness he walked into was a shocker.

The living room was painted a dark blue, with a white sofa covered in fluffy pillows and a throw blanket. There were framed posters on the walls, one from an old action movie, one of a band, a couple of nice landscapes. The hardwood floor had a rug thrown down where Kosmo was now chewing on a bone, and there was just _stuff_ everywhere. Magazines on a shelf by the door, some books stacked by the window, a half-finished jigsaw puzzle spread out on the coffee table.

The place actually looked lived in, more of a home than he expected.

“Nice,” he commented, looking around.

“We like it,” Shiro answered, closing the door. He stopped Lance before he went any further, motioning to the mat by the door that currently held a pair of sneakers and some boots. “Shoes off.”

Lance toed off his boots and followed Shiro further into the apartment, past the kitchen and down a hall to where the bedrooms where. They stopped at a closed door and Shiro knocked.

“Keith?” There was no response at first so he knocked louder. “Keith!”

“Go away!” Keith called back, muffled by the closed door. “I’m trying to feel sorry for myself in peace.”

Shiro rolled his eyes, leaning against the wall with a hand on his hip. “I’m going to try to make waffles, I wanted to know if you wanted one.”

“NO!” Keith yelled, followed by a small crash as he tried to rush to the door. “Don’t you dare try to cook! I’m not going to sit here listening to that damn smoke detect—“

He yanked the door open and stopped, brought up short by finding Lance standing in the hallway along with Shiro. Lance blatantly ignored the dog drool making his hair stick up and smiled charmingly.

“Excuse me,” Shiro said innocently. “I have to get back to my puzzle.”

“What are you doing here?” Keith asked Lance as Shiro went back to the living room. He was trying to sound annoyed, but with his puzzled expression he just came off as confused.

“Better question,” Lance posed, gesturing to Keith thoughtfully. “How does Mr Leather and Knives flawlessly pull off the Artsy Girl Blogger aesthetic?”

Keith’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was wearing a white “Let’s Get Weird” t-shirt that Lance guessed had been Shiro’s at one point given how big it was on him. He was in those black skinny jeans he was always so fond of, and had a sketchbook in one hand and several colors of artist’s chalk smeared on his cheeks.

Keith immediately tried to cover as much of himself as possible with his arms and sketchbook, using a foot to push his door closed. Lance was able to grab the door and squeeze inside before it shut in his face, but if he was being perfectly honest it felt like the struggle was more symbolic than anything. If Keith really wanted to keep him out he damn well could have, even if he were handcuffed and shackled.

“Oh my God, this is adorable,” Lance exclaimed, looking around the room. Keith— _Keith_ —had fairy lights strung up on his walls and photos of them all in little frames on the dresser. Books and small toys and a video game console…normal people things in a normal people room.  And it was just so weird, because as “not Keith” as the décor seemed at first glance, the more Lance looked the more fitting it all was. “There’s color and light! And Pidge said you probably lived in a cave.”

“She did not,” Keith grumbled, closing the sketchbook. Lance tried to take it but he pulled it out of his reach, shoving it into a desk drawer and closing it. “Why are you here?”

“You said you’d go out with me,” Lance answered, turning his attention instead to the bookshelves. He realized how that sounded after it was out and tried to backpedal. “To the movies, I mean.”

“I also said I changed my mind,” Keith reminded him.

“Okay, well, consider this,” Lance suggested, turning away from the bookshelf and back to Keith. “Change your mind back.”

Keith crossed his arms and Lance mentally rolled his eyes. Here came the defense mechanisms against anything that might be too social. Maybe he had anxiety? He’d never been especially bright and cheerful in the beginning but he’d definitely been a lot more open before his two years with Krolia. Lance didn’t blame her in the least, having her in his life had obviously done wonders for Keith, he just wished he knew what had happened in the quantum abyss that made him close off so fast these days. But those years were something neither of them talked about very much.

“I’m not going to the movies with you,” Keith said firmly. “If anyone from the base sees us together after that cheek kiss incident—”

“There was no cheek kiss incident.”

“It’s on video, Lance.”

“Nope, don’t remember. Didn’t see any video. Didn’t happen.”

Keith’s eye twitched a little bit, just like it had during the bonding moment conversation. But the bonding moment and the cheek kiss were both now firmly locked in Lance’s Not Yet Ready To Consider file and they sure as hell weren’t coming out today.

“Fine. Well, Veronica’s already told the entire Atlas and half the base about her baby brother’s hysterical kiss that didn’t happen and showed the video you didn’t see,” Keith caught sight of himself in the mirror and started trying to wipe away the chalk colors with the bottom of his shirt. “Believe me, I made enough of an idiot of myself that you don’t want to be seen with me by anyone from the Garrison. People will talk.”

“Tuesday I walked into a glass door because it was really, really clean,” Lance answered. “On Thursday I locked myself in the simulator because I buckled the seat belt wrong and couldn’t get it open. Oh right, and then there’s that whole thing where I spent yesterday puking from exertion because I almost crashed a plane into a cliff. People talk about me a lot already, I’m kind of a big deal.”

“I’m glad you’re fine with it. I’m not,” Keith scooped a tin of colored artist’s chalk up off the floor where it had been dropped in his rush to get up and moved it to the dresser on his way across the room. He opened the door and leaned against it, not meeting Lance’s eyes. “Please just leave.”

Lance couldn’t understand why Keith was always so hellbent on distancing himself from everyone. Whenever he was included in something he was always so happy, it was obvious he didn’t really like or enjoy being alone. And he couldn’t understand why somebody like Keith would care so much about what other people thought, either.

He was the Paladin of the Black Lion of Voltron, there weren’t too many titles more important than that in the whole universe. Keith was literally one of the coolest people Lance had ever met now that he knew him, one of the best fighters and one of the top pilots. He was tough, a survivor, but he genuinely cared, and when you managed to get him alone for a minute or two of quiet conversation it was just so _nice_.

“Fine, I’ll go hang out with Hunk and Pidge,” Lance mumbled, running a hand through his messy hair.

“Stop sounding like a kicked puppy. I’m doing you a favor, believe me,” Keith answered. The doorbell rang and he leaned out into the hallway to see if Shiro was in the living room to get it. “The last thing you need after yesterday is more fodder for Griffin.”

Keith really should have known better than to turn his back by now, but clearly he hadn’t learned. Lance wasn’t a clumsy little cadet anymore, and the claim that this was being done to “do him a favor” hit a nerve. Lance did not need favors, he did not need to be protected from the other MFE pilots. He could handle James just fine on his own, he didn’t need Keith or Allura trying to shield him from anything.

Lance crossed the room as Keith leaned out into the hallway, grabbing him by the back of his shirt. He yanked it up and pulled it over his head, then dipped down and grabbed the other boy into a fireman’s carry while he was blinded. Keith might have been a little bigger, but Lance had trained a lot harder ever since not being able to lift Veronica from his injuries.

“What are you DOING? Put me DOWN!” Keith’s voice cracked when he shrieked in surprise, which just added to the ridiculousness of the entire situation as Lance carried him into the living room where Matt had just arrived and was talking to Shiro.

“Hey, I’m borrowing this,” he announced. “When’s his curfew?”

“I’m not his dad!” Shiro exclaimed. “…have him back by two.”

“He turns into a little bitchbaby if he’s awake longer than that,” Matt warned. “Don’t feed him after midnight. Don’t get him wet. I guess. I don’t know, I’m a horrible stepmother. I have no idea how children work.”

Keith managed to untangle himself from the shirt even though he only had one arm to fight with. He looked positively venomous, but he held onto Lance tightly so he didn’t end up dropped on the floor.

“I’m not going anywhere!” He insisted. “If you don’t put me down right now…”

“Open the door for me?” Lance requested. Matt complied and he stepped out onto the sidewalk, still in his stocking feet. “Hey, somebody grab my keys and pop my trunk?”

“Don’t you dare!” Keith snarled as Shiro reached over to pull Lance’s keys out of his pocket. He hit the fob and the trunk opened. “Lance, I’m warning you! Do not—“

Lance leaned over and dropped Keith into the trunk. He slammed it closed before he could escape and sat on top of it, catching the keys Shiro tossed to him.

“You know he could’ve dropped you like a sack of bricks whenever he wanted to, right?” Matt asked. “And he can totally get out of there. I’ve seen him do worse, he’s like a velociraptor with real thumbs.”

“Oh, definitely,” Lance answered, grinning at the sounds of Keith’s muffled cursing. “He wants to go, he just needs to be forced so he doesn’t have to admit it.”

“Shhh,” Shiro commanded. “Let him believe his ways are dark and mysterious and unknown to us mortals.”

“How ya doin’ in there, buddy?” Lance called loudly, knocking on the trunk. “Come on, it’s a couple of hours at the movie theater. You can handle it.”

“Fine!” Keith kicked the top of the trunk. “Let me out so I can put on a real shirt before I kill you.”

Lance slid off the trunk and opened it up. Keith climbed out unsteadily and stormed back into the apartment, still cursing.

“Lady doth protest too much,” Matt commented after he disappeared. “But hey, if he’s going out we can be as loud as we want.”

Lance didn’t know what Matt and Shiro got up to when they hung out, which was often, and he wasn’t sure it was a secret he wanted to be let in on. They’d spent months together on Kerberos mission training, then on the mission itself and in Galra captivity, they were pretty close. But Lance didn’t really know Matt himself, so sometimes it felt like they were…weirdly close.

“I don’t need to know anything about your plans, but okay.”

“It’s only gay if you don’t say “no homo,” Shiro said helpfully. Sometimes the silvery white hair made it hard to remember he was only in his mid-twenties, until he opened his mouth.

“I do always say “no homo,” Matt agreed. “Bareback hot oil massage with soft music by candlelight? Totally hetero.”

“You’re so bromantic,” Shiro answered with a fake sigh of happiness. He had to bend his knees a little so he was short enough to let his head rest on Matt’s shoulder.

“Two dudes, sittin’ in a hot tub,” Matt sang. “It’s just a horror movie marathon, Lance. But thanks for the vote of confidence in my seduction skills, Mom would be thrilled if I brought home a stacked military man. So would my girlfriend, now that I think of it.”

Lance made a face and retrieved his boots from just inside the door, and finished tying them as Keith reappeared. He’d ditched the ponytail and had on a red t-shirt that actually fit him, and had the long-suffering expression of a man being forced into extended torment.

Except Lance knew he didn’t really feel that way. Keith spoke with actions instead of words, but he also said a lot with his eyes. Lance was absolutely terrible at reading the actions, but he knew what Keith’s eyes looked like when he was really angry or upset, and this wasn’t it.

“Have fun, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Matt waved cheerfully as they headed to the car.

“Good thing I have bail money in case they follow that advice,” Lance heard Shiro say just before the apartment door closed.

Lance got in the car, watching Keith climb in and sit with his hands in his lap, looking around at the interior. He waited for him to get his seat belt on before pulling out of the parking space, giving him a sideways look as they left the complex.

“So what were you drawing?”

“Nothing.”

Nothing. Sure. That’s why his ears started to get red, he was drawing nothing.

“You know that I know that you’re lying, right?” Lance pressed. Seriously, he did not know what was up with Keith spontaneously getting sensitive about things. This was the guy who’d spent the majority of his youth literally not caring other human beings existed, now lately it seemed like everything got him worked up. “It’s just a picture, man. I’m not asking for your social security number.”

Keith took a deep breath and looked at the numbers displaying on the radio. His face settled into a resigned expression.

“Nude model.”

“Oh.” Definitely not what Lance expected. He was caught so unawares he almost missed the light turning red and had to stop abruptly. “Like, somebody we know, or…?”

“I’m taking an art class!” Keith sputtered. “Who do we even know who I would be drawing naked?”

“Well Matt’s kind of shady!” Lance answered defensively. He tried not to think about Keith drawing anybody naked, that was getting into territory he didn’t think his brain could handle right now. “Why are you taking an art class?”

“Because I hate being bad at things. ”

Okay, Keith was terrible at art, Lance had to give him that one. And it really did drive him nuts to be bad at things, so he wasn’t lying about that. There were about six different jokes and wisecracks that went through Lance’s mind that would still be perfect for the situation, but he decided to keep them to himself. This time.

“Lots of people are bad at art, it’s not a big deal,” he said instead.

“Lots of people haven’t had the lives of their team depend on it and failed,” Keith answered. “Come on, a windy cave?”

“I’m not a mind reader,” Lance reminded him testily.

“You’re not a picture reader either.”

“I’m a words reader!” Lance declared as he pulled off the main road and into the shopping mall parking lot. There were a lot of shoppers today, he had to park a little ways down from the theater. “I don’t do codes, or pictures, or hints, or clues. I do words. Give me what you mean, guessing is stupid. You could be a world class artist and I’d probably still think it was a windy cave.”

Keith opened his mouth to answer, but Lance threw up his hands for silence.

“Just let it go. We’re not here to argue, we’re here to unwind. I just need one afternoon without jets or lions or space magic…leave your knife and gun in the car.”

“I don’t have my knife and gun.”

Lance turned in the driver seat, leaning on the steering wheel with one arm to stare wordlessly at Keith. He tapped the fingers of his other hand lightly on the back of his own seat, the only sound in the car until Keith leaned forward and pulled his knife out of the back of his belt. He also leaned to the side, pulling the gun holster from where it was clipped inside of his waistband, and put both weapons in the glove compartment.

“Just remember this if we need to fight and I’m not armed,” he warned as they got out of the car.

“Who are we gonna need to fight, Keith?” Lance asked, exasperated. He motioned to the mall with both hands on their way inside. “Capitalism? Clerks putting out Christmas decorations already? Is there a crazy sale at Build-A-Bear I don’t know about?”

“The last time we went to a mall, we left on a cow with a mall cop chasing us and a food kiosk owner trying to abduct Hunk,” Keith pointed out. “I’m sure you remember the concussion you picked up on the way out.”

“Pidge and I had an awesome time that day, I have no regrets.”

The theater was already buzzing with Saturday afternoon activity when they reached it, bypassing the lines of people waiting for tickets and heading inside to the concession stand. Lance wasn’t really big on movie theater food, he got himself some gummy bears and a bottle of water while Keith went all out with popcorn and  huge soda. Auditorium number four, where their movie was playing, was already half full by the time they stepped inside.

“Back row,” Lance insisted as soon as they were on their way up the steps. He put a hand between Keith’s shoulder blades and pushed him forward so he couldn’t slow down at another row. “It’s not as loud.”

Actually, he just didn’t trust Keith. He’d never been to a movie with him before, and he seemed like the kind of person who kept a running commentary or got bored and kept pulling out his phone. Okay, and Lance kind of wanted some privacy. His nerves were all over the place and he didn’t want to feel like the people seated behind him were staring at them or listening or something. The middle of the back row felt safe, and he had the excuse of a better view and sound.

“These are the hook up seats,” Keith said once they were sitting. He timed it perfectly so that Lance choked on a gummy bear, and then he smirked at the coughing sounds. “Just saying. I have been to a movie theater before, are you sure you have?”

“They are not! Those are the ones in the corners.”

“Oh, I _see._ ”

The sound of those three words made Lance’s heart skip a beat. They sounded accusatory in a way, but also somehow mocking. Lance wondered if Keith had somehow figured out what was going on. He’d gone right past Keith’s door on his way to talk to Shiro yesterday then spent a few hours with him afterward, maybe Shiro had told him what they’d talked about. Those two were so close, Lance doubted they had many secrets between them.

He kept his face carefully casual as he looked over at Keith. That familiar smile was back, that teasing one that had been missing for so long, the one that had made its appearance when everyone was happy and enjoying themselves. Lance hadn’t known before recently, but it was one of his favorite smiles, and one he missed the most.

“Loverboy Lance has never actually taken a girl on a movie date,” Keith guessed. “If you did you’d know the whole back row is Grand Central Station for risky business.”

“Okay, I refuse to believe _you_ just used the term “risky business,” Lance artfully avoided answering the accusation. “You’re like 20, grow up.”

He thought he heard Keith laugh at him, but the lights dimmed and the previews started playing. The theater was filling up around them, and the seats on either side of them were already taken. He had no intention of moving from where they were already sitting, but even if he had there wouldn’t be anywhere to go.

Next to him, Keith slouched down in his seat and bent his knees to put his feet flat on the back of the chair in front of him. Lance got caught up in the previews, and then the beginning of the movie. But eventually his eyes began to slide to the young man sitting to his left. Lance tried to watch him without really watching him, doing his best to not get caught watching. He was trying to get a good look at him, a real look, trying to decide how he felt about him physically.

He’d gotten used to the fact that Keith was taller than him now, even if it was only by about an inch. But he was still kind of slender where Lance had managed to fill out with lean muscle through all of his training as a Paladin.  He’d always had an almost ridiculously pretty face, but now they all knew that came from Krolia. It made Lance wonder if mixing Galra with something else softened the features, which would explain that useless bottom feeder Lotor.

Those soft features were hardened slightly by the Galra marking that ran across Keith’s cheek, halfway down his neck. It wasn’t a scar and it matched his mother’s perfectly, but it sort of faded away at the bottom like a burn might. The rest of his skin around it was perfectly normal…if you counted having infuriatingly flawless skin without putting in any effort “normal.” Was that a Galra thing too? Lance hated that.

He liked the mark, though. He liked Keith’s face. He liked that elegant, lithe body that he’d often watched through the sights of his sniper rifle, the way it moved so quickly and lightly. Now that he knew he liked all those things he wished he’d been aware enough to appreciate it all more over their time on team Voltron. The mark was the most visible feature right now, though, he could certainly start giving that some appreciation.

“You’ve seen it before, stop staring at it.”

Keith shook his head, making that stupidly long hair of his fall down in his face to try and hide the mark. He peeked out between the messy strands, tilting his head slightly to the side to look at him, and Lance almost dumped his water on himself.

For a second, he felt an almost overwhelming urge to punch Keith in the head. He was just so damn _pretty_ from certain angles, and handsome from others, and it was just so…Lance didn’t have a male-centric coping mechanism for this. He felt a lot like he had in the beginning, a frustration that was very easy to mistake for rivalry or dislike. That he knew a little bit better now didn’t help matters much, antagonism was still the only outlet he had for it.

“I’m not staring, you’re staring,” Lance shot back. He wasn’t even sure what he was saying as he sunk down in his seat, eyes flicking forward to where the movie’s protagonist was running down some dark alley. He didn’t know what was going on in the film anymore.

“Your comebacks are still lame,” Keith answered, plucking the box of gummy bears out of Lance’s hand.

Lance made a grab for it, but Keith held it out of his reach. He twisted in his seat so he could pull the inner bag out of the box to see the colors better and pick what he wanted to steal.

“Come on man, you got popcorn!” Lance hissed, reaching around Keith and under his arm for the bag. “Give that back!”

Keith turned his head a little, that little smirk back in place now only inches from Lance’s face.

“Make me.”

The words were murmured in a quiet moment of the movie, perfectly audible with their proximity. Lance had missed the meaning of that tone a thousand times before, but now he was more aware and he caught the subtle changes. The way Keith’s voice went slightly lower and deeper, the faint raising of his eyebrows, the tilt to his head.

_When my head hits the pillow, it’s going to be lights out._

_Hey Lance, I got your Lion back._

_Heh, like that?_

_I’m glad we’re all making fun of Lance._

_Lance? Leave the math to Pidge._

He was flirting. Oh, God, he was flirting. There was no mistaking it, he had been a blatant flirt all this time and he was still doing it now and Lance had no idea what to do with this information. Respond with an insult? Flirt back to see what happened? Try to escape? That last one was kind of promising, but he’d have to climb over other people in the dark.

Lance took option number four: he panicked and brought the hand that was reaching for the gummy bears up to smack Keith in the face. It was not a well thought decision by any means, and he definitely wasn’t prepared to back it up. Keith took a second to recover then smacked him in the face with the gummy bear bag in retaliation.

That touched off a brief slap war that only ended when Lance leaned across the shared arm rest to pin one of Keith’s arms down with his body. He grabbed the other wrist with both hands, protecting himself from further injury at the cost of tilting precariously between the seats.

“That’s cheating!” Keith hissed.

“All’s fair in war!” Lance returned.

“Fine, take your candy,” Keith relented, holding up the bag between two fingers. “Just don’t kick over my popcorn bucket.”

Lance released Keith’s far arm and took the bag, but he was more wary with the one on the armrest. He slid back down in his seat but kept it pinned under his own arm, making sure to lean some of his weight on it to keep it down.

“Are you just going to sit like that for the rest of the movie?”

“Yes,” Lance sulked.

“Fine.”

Lance had expected more to the fight, but Keith just twisted in his seat to use his free arm and pick his popcorn bucket back up. He leaned back and balanced it on his lap, and went back to watching the movie like nothing happened.

Up on the screen, the main protagonist was running through a hallway. He opened a door at the end and stepped through, only to have a booby-trapped crossbow go off and send an arrow through his head. The screen flashed and the scene moved on to him waking up in bed that morning to go through his whole horrible day again.

That was about as far as Lance got with the actual movie. His attention impatiently returned to the boy sitting next to him, specifically to the arm pinned down under his and the hand settled on the armrest between them. After a few minutes, when it became clear Keith wasn’t going to continue their fight, Lance sat further back into his seat but left his arm draped on Keith’s.

There wasn’t any reaction. Keith didn’t pull back or push his arm away. He didn’t seem bothered by any of the contact so far, and there was no way he didn’t notice it. Lance’s thoughts kept going back to that little smirk, the subtle dare in the words “make me.” He went over the many different replies he could have given, ranging from flirty to sarcastic, hating that he hadn’t been able to think of any of them in the moment.

He had been looking for an opportunity, then freaked out when one was presented. Now there was another opportunity sitting right between them, the question was whether Lance had the guts to take this one or pass again.

_Well, if this crashes and burns at least we’re in different units now._

Lance took a deep breath, then opened his water bottle and took a sip. As he closed it up and put it back into the cup holder with his right hand, he let his left one come back down to rest on top of Keith’s. Then he stared straight ahead at the screen and started screaming internally.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Keith’s other hand stop digging in the popcorn bucket.

_Please tell me I didn’t read everything wrong,_ he prayed. _He’s not reacting…I wish he had subtitles. Is he annoyed? Does he think this is funny? Maybe he just flirts for the hell of it because he knows nobody notices and doesn’t expect a response. He’s really not doing anything. He’s probably confused. I totally read this wrong, how much would it really cost me to move back to Cuba tomorrow and never have to look him in the eye again?_

It was only seconds but it felt like years, and Lance had already gone through three different scenarios for how he could quickly leave the country when Keith’s hand moved. He pulled his own back, half expecting to have it slapped away, but Keith’s arm didn’t move. His hand just flipped over, settling palm-up and open on the armrest.

Lance hesitated, stealing a look over at Keith in the dark. He was looking away, not even at the movie screen but off toward the far corner of the theater. Embarrassed, maybe? If so, he couldn’t be feeling half as insecure right now as Lance was.

The open hand was easy enough to read, even for somebody who didn’t read actions well. At least, Lance hoped he understood it correctly. He could feel his face growing hot as he returned his hand lightly to Keith’s, looked away as he felt the other’s fingers curl up between his.

Lance stared at the exit sign off to the right of the theater. His heart felt like it might beat out of his chest, he sank down in his chair and pulled his shirt up to cover his face. There was no point in even trying to watch the movie now, all of his attention was on the warm hand holding his and the indescribable jolt it sent through his nerves.

Neither one of them moved for the rest of the movie. Lance eventually let his shirt fall back away from his face but he stayed frozen in place even as the credits rolled and other moviegoers started to leave. Even when the theater was mostly empty and the lights came on, the two of them were still seated with their fingers entwined, refusing to look at each other.

“So…” Keith finally broke the stalemate. He sounded uncertain. “Are we going to talk about this?”

“Nope,” Lance said decisively.

He got up from his seat and grabbed his water bottle with his free hand, briefly debating letting go of Keith and making a run for it. But since they’d come in the same car and that wouldn’t exactly work, he doubled down instead and kept his hold. Keith followed suit and they left the theater still holding hands.

They were both awkward as hell about it and neither would look at the other, but they walked back through the mall very slowly on the unspoken agreement that they kind of wanted it to last longer. The two good things that came out of the whole thing were that now Lance thought he knew where he stood, and that now he knew Keith was just as much of a disaster as he was. Apparently neither of them could live up to their flirting.

“Lance!”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Lance let go of Keith and shoved his hand in his pocket so fast he almost broke his finger on the hem. Next to him, Keith quickly hooked his thumb in his belt loop—something he never did and that looked ridiculously out of place—as Veronica came jogging toward them with Allura and Rachel in tow.

“How was the movie?”

“The movie?” Lance asked, finally looking at Keith. He looked just as wide-eyed and trapped as Lance felt. “The movie. It was…it was…”

“It was okay?” Keith tried. “There was a lot of dying.”

Lance wasn’t even sure how the movie had ended, and he only had the vaguest recollection of half of what went on through it. The fact that Veronica had timed the end of it and showed up here with Allura was his own personal horror movie, he didn’t like having things he wasn’t ready for pushed at him. But he couldn’t blame Allura, she was just her happy, gorgeous self. Veronica was the schemer.

“I was going to call you, but I figured you wouldn’t be able to pick up your phone in the theater,” Veronica was blatantly lying and they both knew it. She was here face-to-face because she knew he couldn’t say no to Allura. “We’re going out with Marco, Luis and Romelle. Come with us! We’re going to Azúcar.”

“I’m not even old enough to get into Azúcar,” Lance pointed out. It was a Latin bar over on the east end of the city, one of Veronica’s favorite haunts. They had an under-18 night once in a blue moon and he’d gone then, but he doubted that was the case tonight.”

Veronica reached around him to his back pocket, yanking his wallet out against his protests. She opened it up and shoved his driver’s license in his face.

“Take your birth year and subtract it from the date,” she ordered. “You’re old enough.”

“Yeah, no,” Lance snatched his wallet back. “Mom and Dad know about the time dilation, if they find out I was in a bar they’ll murder me.”

“They won’t find out!” Veronica protested. “Come on, it will be fun!”

“Veronica’s going to teach Romelle and me how to salsa,” Allura piped up. “Come with us! They said you can dance, I want to see it!”

She looked so excited, looking forward to the night out. Lance doubted she knew what an Earth bar was actually like, but he didn’t have the heart to squash her happiness. He cursed Veronica for being so damn good at manipulating him and looked over at Keith.

“I can have Shiro come pick me up if you’re going right from here,” he said with a shrug.

“What? No, you’re coming too,” Rachel declared, moving behind Keith and giving him a push forward even as Veronica grabbed Lance’s arm.

They were both a little too eager for his taste, and he could tell Keith felt the same way. When they reached the door he leaned over to whisper as they were ushered out of the mall by three very overexcited women.

"You were right for once, I should have let you keep your knife."


	8. Chapter 8

There was a single forceful question woven through Keith’s wandering thoughts like a thread, an issue he kept returning to every time one of the other trains of thought burnt out his brain and made him have to reset.

_What the hell kind of Willy Wonka day is this?_

He’d just spent about forty-five minutes holding hands with Lance in a dark movie theater, and it was absolutely nothing like any of the romantic fantasies he’d had as a teenager. The reality was more uncomfortable and terrifying, with a big chunk of confusing thrown in for good measure.

But it was also strangely thrilling, because he hadn’t been expecting it. Lance had been the one to insist on the movies, Lance had been the one to make him go, and Lance had been the one to finally respond to his flirting and initiate the hand-holding. He’d also been the one to continue it, and only broke it off when his sister showed up.

Keith wasn’t really sure where to go with that from here. His life had revolved around space or fighting in some way for so long he was no longer certain how to make other things fit in. He wasn’t even sure if he should make this fit in, even though he really, really wanted to.

He had very good reasons for being cold and dismissive to Lance after returning from his time in the quantum abyss. Part of it had simply been that he’d been gone for two years and managed to mostly forget his feelings, but those had come back pretty quickly. Even after Keith had grown, both physically and emotionally, it had only taken a short time before he was back to pining after Lance.

The other part was the things he’d seen in the abyss. Those flashes of the past and, more importantly, the future. But he wasn’t even sure if those applied anymore. Things were beginning to turn out very different from what he and his mother had seen, he no longer knew which—if any—of those visions to trust.

The car parked on a stretch of decimated road, pulling Keith away from his thoughts. Sometimes it was easy to forget the toll taken on the world by the Galran invasion and war, until you looked outside of the centers of rebuilt cities to their frayed and destroyed edges. Earth wouldn’t truly be back on its feet for years.

Rachel was the first one out of the car. She’d ridden along with them, making it impossible for them to talk about what was going on between them even if they’d wanted to. She’d kept Lance busy with conversation, and the sudden silence when she got out was heavy.

Keith looked over at Lance for cues. Azúcar was some kind of bar or club, he could see people going in and out of the neatly painted building and hear Spanish music spilling out into the early evening. He was definitely out of his element.

“Okay…they’re gonna hug you,” Lance warned.

“Who’s going to what?” Keith asked, startled.

“My brothers, they’re going to hug you,” Lance clarified. “So might their friends. It’s a cultural thing, try not to get weird about it. It’s not personal.”

“I’m not going to “get weird,” I can handle being hugged by people I know.”

He didn’t know the McClains especially well, other than Veronica, but they weren’t total strangers. He could survive a couple of hugs now that he had been warned, it wasn’t like he was deathly allergic to human contact.

They got out of the car and he followed Lance to the door, where Veronica had just met Rachel with Allura and Romelle. They all had to show their IDs but didn’t have any problems getting in. Keith stuck close to Lance, taking the place in.

He didn’t go to bars, but it was pretty much what he’d expected. Bigger than he’d pictured maybe, but there was a long, well-stocked bar on one side and high tables littering the rest of the room. The back was open space where he could see people dancing.

“Mi pequeño!” A man standing at a nearby table with one of Lance’s brothers—Luis, Keith thought—spotted Lance and cheerfully came to grab him up in a hug. “Tienes veintiún años?”

“Si, en July! Same day as Pedro Ledesma.”

Lance returned the hug. Keith had been forewarned, but he was still caught off guard when the man stepped over and pulled him into a bone-crushing embrace. He moved on to Veronica next, going down the line.

“That’s Antonio, he’s Luis’ best friend,” Lance told Keith, right before Marco appeared and hugged Lance so hard he picked him right up off the floor.

They were a very affectionate group, he had to admit. It wasn’t necessarily terrible or anything, just definitely not the reserved kind of people Keith was used to. It explained a lot about Lance, really,  and the utter lack of shame he had half the time.

“Come on, let’s get you a drink!” Antonio returned and hooked Lance and Keith around the shoulders, separating them off from the girls.

Lance protested, but it fell on deaf ears. Keith found himself standing next to him at the bar, with Antonio to his right and Luis to Lance’s left. Marco was standing behind him talking to the bartender in Spanish, and the next thing Keith knew there were shots poured out in front of them all.

“What is this?” Keith asked, picking up the shot glass. Everyone around him was preparing to take the shot, so he assumed that was what he was also supposed to do.

“I have no idea, I don’t drink,” Lance answered, making a face as he lifted his own glass. “Just try to swallow it and stay alive, I guess.”

Antonio and Marco threw their shots back. Keith looked to Lance for direction, but all he did was shrug and raise is own to his lips so Keith gave in and copied him.

_How bad could it be?_ He wondered, dumping the shot into his mouth.

He regretted it immediately. It tasted terrible and it kind of burned, and it made his gag reflex try to kick in. Next to him, Lance had put down his glass and covered his mouth with both hands, so Keith assumed he was in pretty much the same boat. He managed to swallow his and started coughing, wondering if he still had any skin on his tongue.

Lance was still struggling. Marco laughed and smacked him in the back, hard, forcing him to swallow. Lance barely managed to get it down before he was coughing and sputtering.

“What is that, turpentine?” Lance coughed. “I think my throat is peeling off.”

“Lance, man, come on,” Luis elbowed him. “You’re embarrassing me. Veronica! Come show Lance how a man drinks!”

“Are you buying?” Veronica called from the other end of the bar. “If so, pour up four!”

“Why are you going to do this to me?” Lance asked Luis as more shots were poured.

“Because you broke that lamp when you were twelve and told Mom I did it,” Luis grinned. “Shots up, ladies!”

Keith found himself pressed up against Lance as the others made room for his sisters and the Alteans. Allura and Romelle were curious initially but had the same reactions as Lance and Keith to actually taking the shots, but Veronica and Rachel took theirs like champs and then ordered seconds.

Lance was watching his sisters with that annoyed look on his face that Keith knew all too well. He felt like he was being challenged and needed to step up, which was probably going to end terribly.

“Okay, fine, give me another one,” Lance demanded after Veronica finished her third.

_And there it is,_ Keith sighed internally. _The beginning of the disaster of the century._

They offered him another shot but Keith declined, following Rachel’s example like Allura and ordering a cojito. He had no idea what it was and he didn’t really care, he just wanted to have a drink in front of him to ward off further offers.

Lance did slightly better with his second shot. When he agreed to a third Keith excused himself from the bar to move away from the crush of people, searching for an empty table. He found one over against the wall that had some empty stools and settled in to wait until Lance’s siblings finished hazing him and let him go.

He was a little uncomfortable with the sheer amount of people he didn’t know, but he decided he didn’t hate it here. He liked the music and so far the people were friendly, he just didn’t have much of a function here until the competitive drinking was over.

Romelle recovered from her initial disgust and started to get into the game, but after a few minutes Allura broke away and drifted over to sit across from Keith at his table. Her face lost much of the cheerfulness she’d been projecting, and she had that sad, soulful air about her she got when she was thinking too hard about things she couldn’t change.

“Mind if I sit here?”

“It’s a free country.” He didn’t want to tell her to go away, but he also didn’t want to be too inviting. Keith liked Allura, admired her in many respects, but he didn’t want to be overtly friendly.

She took the open stool and spent a few minutes stirring the contents of her glass with a little plastic sword she’d gotten at the bar. He got the impression she had something to say, but he didn’t prod. It wasn’t his job to pry her problems out of her. When she did finally get her thoughts together enough to speak she didn’t look at him.

“Is Lance why you’ve been coming down on me so much lately?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith didn’t think he was coming down on her any more than usual. “You’re probably just noticing it more because he’s not around for me to yell at instead of everyone else.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Okay?” Keith pressed when she didn’t say anything else.

He tried not to sound annoyed. This was another issue he had with talking to Allura, she wasn’t always pushy and clear. She spoke like a diplomat, a sort of verbal sparring filled with veiled meaning and necessary prompting. Not like everyone else he knew, who were all in some way military and knew the value of getting to the point. He could easily tell she was uncomfortable and needed to get something off her chest, but she was dancing around what.

“I saw you before Veronica did at the mall,” she specified. Keith felt his stomach sink. “Before you let go of his hand.”

“Quiznak,” Keith whispered as he folded his hands in front of him, resting his head on them and closing his eyes. He really didn’t want to try explaining something he had no explanation for, especially when he wasn’t even sure what was going on himself.

“I guess I know now why he wasn’t really responding to me,” she supposed. “I thought maybe it was just his recovery, but I guess I was ignoring that he was pulling back even before the last fight.”

Keith didn’t say anything. He hadn’t had any time to analyze the past, and even if he did he wasn’t Lance. Nobody would know what was going through Lance’s head but him, and nobody else could speak for him. If she wanted some kind of revelation, he didn’t have it to give.

“So is that why you’re always so curt with me these days?” She spoke again to fill his silence. “Because you two are…and you felt like I was in the way?”

“No.” Keith opened his eyes and dropped his hands, looking around the bar and wishing something would happen to interrupt the conversation. “Well, maybe once or twice outside of work, but never on the field. What’s between you and me is between you and me, I try not to bring other people into it.”

“Then what is it?” Now she was getting upset. “You shoot down anything I offer, you order me to be quiet so I can’t argue my case. And I adore Pidge, but completely ignoring my experience and putting her in the lead?”

“Pidge has just as much experience in this war as you do,” Keith reminded her. “And she was trained at the Garrison before that. Any experience you have beyond that with the Galra is ten thousand years old and obsolete.”

She looked like he’d just slapped her in the face. Keith sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking over to where the others were now trying to match each other with much bigger drinks that definitely weren’t shots. He really hated talking to people, things never came out right. Stupid things meant to shut down the conversation always managed to escape while the things he wanted to say stayed stuck on the tip of his tongue.

“Come here.” Keith got up and stepped away from the table, catching Allura by the arm and pulling her along with him.

They wove through the crowd to the door, stepping out of the warm bar and into the cool evening air, where he let her go and walked down to the corner. There was nothing here beyond the road but abandoned ruins that hadn’t yet been repaired.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” He asked once they were out in the quiet.

“I’m sorry?”

“In five years,” Keith repeated. “Where do you think you’ll be? Do you really think you’ll still be piloting Blue?”

“Unless you intend to try to kick me off the team,” she said coldly, crossing her arms in a fair imitation of him.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Keith answered, annoyed. “Last year we found out there are more Alteans out there, and once we have a full Voltron team again we’re going to start looking for them. So what do you think happens when we find them? You’ll be their link to the outside world, they’re going to need you. I can’t believe I have to be the one to point this out, Allura, but you’re not a princess anymore. If they decide to accept your leadership, your parents aren’t around. You’ll be the queen of whatever new Altea gets founded.”

“And my father was a king, but he still piloted the Red Lion up until his death,” Allura argued. “That isn’t an excuse to freeze me out!”

“Your father had you and your mother!” Keith was getting frustrated that she just didn’t get it. “He had a peaceful planet, a stable kingdom, a trusted court! All you’re going to have is you and Coran, and maybe you’ll be able to balance being a queen and a Paladin in the beginning but it isn’t going to last. Eventually you’re going to have to make a choice, and your people are going to win. And that’s fine, I’d never blame you for that, but I’m not going to put you in a position that might cripple us when you go the same way Lance transferring did.”

Allura frowned at him, relaxing her stance a little. Keith didn’t like the way she looked at him, it made him feel like she was pressing into something that was none of her business.

“You’re really afraid of people leaving, aren’t you?”

“That’s _not_ what this is about,” Keith said harshly. What did she know, anyway? She didn’t know anything about him. He decided he didn’t want to take this conversation any further and turned back toward the bar. “I have plenty of other reasons for not putting you in the lead!”

“That’s exactly what this is about, you just said it yourself,” she stepped into his path and raised both arms, blocking him from passing. “You refuse to put your trust in me because you’re convinced I’m going to turn around and leave. Well “the mission above all else” is the Blade of Marmora’s slogan, not Team Voltron’s. You’ve all become my family, I’m never going to leave any of you behind.”

“Allura, you have to be realistic—”

“ _You_ have to stop painting everyone with the same brush,” Allura interrupted. “Isn’t that what I had to do when we found out you were half Galra? Stop comparing you to others and learn how to trust you? What do I have to do to help you learn to trust me?”

Keith turned away, rubbing his face with both hands as he wandered a few steps further toward the edge of the quiet road. He’d had more stress in the last week from getting personal with his friends than he’d had during the entire war, and that included nearly crashing a striker into a Galra ship in a suicide strike. All he was supposed to do today was be locked in his room practicing a chalk sketch, not getting locked into an emotional roller coaster that didn’t have brakes.

“Just…give me some time to myself, okay?” He let his hands fall way from his face to look up at the stars before turning back to Allura. “I don’t have an answer for you. I may never have an answer for you. But Saturday night outside of a bar while everyone else is having fun isn’t the time or place for this talk.”

“You’re going to have to have this talk sometime. And sooner rather than later, because it’s affecting your judgement of your team.”

“I know, but I’m not ready for it now. Tomorrow? Maybe? At my office on the base, after I’ve had a chance to sleep and think.”

He expected her to keep pushing the matter, but she deflated a little and lowered her arms. Keith started back toward the bar and she fell into step with him, clearly not happy but at least accepting the alternative.

“So I suppose I should also back off of Lance.”

Keith wanted to say yes, but he knew that wasn’t fair. He wasn’t the gatekeeper of Lance’s affections no matter how much he wished that were the case.

“I think you should ask him that,” he answered, holding open the door when the reached it. “I don’t know if he’s decided anything.”

He left it at that. Maybe he didn’t have any specific claim over Lance at the moment, but that didn’t mean he was going to encourage her.

The night had gotten underway enough that the lights were now dimmed to encourage the kind of inappropriate behavior that generally happened in clubs. The others were still at the bar but they seemed to be slowing down. Keith wasn’t about to go back to the drinks they’d left abandoned so he took them up to the bar to have them dumped and ordered himself a Coke while Allura drifted back over to Romelle and Veronica. He had a feeling he’d be the designated driver.

Keith watched them all laughing, took in the sight of Lance giggling uncontrollably along with Marco. He looked so carefree and happy, so different from the stumbling exhaustion he’d been sporting for months. It had only been a week away from Red and he was like a whole new person.

What did that say about the effects of quintessence?

Zarkon had fallen to it, so had Honerva and Lotor. The rush it gave was almost addictive and the power it provided was like no other experience. Keith knew he had to be careful when he spent those nights plugged into the quintessence field through Black. Sure, the Black Lion acted as a buffer so maybe his risk wasn’t quite so high, but he couldn’t forget what quintessence could do to someone.

Down the bar, Lance was hammered and his siblings loved it. Keith thought they must have been waiting months for this, ever since his legal twenty-first birthday, and none of them cared that he hadn't aged for three years of his life and was still only eighteen. The baby of the family was all grown up now and healthy enough to celebrate, and they were in the long haul for celebrating. Down past him, Romelle looked like she was just about three sheets to the wind as well, and Allura had settled in to join her.

Keith took out his phone and started going through his email, not interested in being over in the center of activity but not necessarily hating being here either. He was enjoying the music, sipping his soda and scrolling through his phone when something occurred to him. He looked over at Lance, who was bounding over to the dance floor with Rachel and some other girl they knew, then back to his phone. Picking through his contacts, he sent a curious text.

_ (22:05) Question. _

He doubted Hunk would be asleep this early on a Saturday, but he must have been busy since the reply didn’t come for several minutes.

_ (22:17) Possible answer? _

_ (22:19) You asked me if I had a thing with Lance. _

_ (22:20) And you said no. Are you interested in meeting that barista? _

_ ;(22:22) No. I want to know why you even asked. Is there something you know about Lance that the rest of us don’t? _

The replies suddenly stopped coming. Keith had a feeling Hunk had only now realized he might have outed his friend and was probably panicking. They’d known each other since their first year at the Garrison, maybe longer, if anybody had noticed anything about Lance it would be Hunk.

After about five minutes, Keith knew he wasn’t going to answer. Hunk would come up with something to say and then either tomorrow or Monday would tell him he fell asleep in the middle of the conversation or something. Keith put his phone away and picked up his Coke, turning to scan the bar for the others.

Most of them were on the dance floor. But more specifically, Lance was on the dance floor. He was dancing with the female friend, and holy quiznak was he moving.

Keith was pretty sure he was too drunk to walk a straight line, but obviously salsa dancing didn’t require a straight line. Lance was keeping up perfectly well with the almost frantic pace of the other dancers, moving his hips in ways Keith hadn’t even known people moved.

After a few moments Lance switched partners, picking up a woman in very high heels who moved like she practically did this for a living. A few more moments and another switch, this time to a young man who was just as drunk as he was. He didn’t seem to care who he was dancing with, completely lost in the music and the sensual movements.

Allura was on the dance floor as well, but she was over with Veronica. Veronica was trying to show her the basic steps of the dance, but she was tipsy and having trouble. Allura didn’t seem to care how she looked, throwing herself into it with reckless drunken abandon and laughing up a storm.

Keith wished he had that kind of confidence about something other than fighting.

“No sitting out the dance portion of the evening!” Rachel appeared at Keith’s side, resting a hand on his shoulder and shouting over the music. “Come on, get moving!”

“Uh, no thanks, I don’t dance.”

“You don’t know how, or you don’t do it?” Rachel asked. She had his arm now and she was still tugging him.

“A little bit of both?” Keith tried.

“Well Romelle and Allura don’t know how either, but they’re trying. Come on! Nobody’s sober enough to judge you, mijo! It’s a party, and everybody dances at a McClain party!”

Keith looked over at everybody on the floor, laughing and smiling. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself, but he supposed she was right; Romelle was barely managing to keep her feet alongside Allura and they were having a good time. Luis was having the time of his life dancing by himself and Marco was actually kind of a terrible dancer but obviously didn’t care.

Plus, it was dark, and everyone was so close together it wasn’t like anyone could really watch him mess up. He gave in and let Rachel pull him over to join the others.

“Just do the Cha-Cha!” She advised, taking both of his hands. “Everyone can do the basic Cha-Cha! It’s like this…step, step, cha-cha-cha…step, step, cha-cha-cha!”

The steps weren’t difficult, just unfamiliar. Keith tried to copy her but initially got messed up by the fact that her movements weren’t in time with the music. It took him a few tries, but he was nothing if not a quick learner, especially when it came to physical activities. Once he got a feel for the steps he was able to keep up admirably.

“Liar, you can dance!” Rachel cheered him on and he couldn’t help the smile he felt creeping onto his face. “Now let’s make it a little harder! Side-step, back-step, one, two, three, other side-step, back-step, one, two, three!”

The additional steps weren’t very hard and he got them down quickly. Rachel threw in some spins here and there, which caught him off guard at first but he managed. Keith thought he was actually doing fairly well, and it helped that he was hidden in the dark and mixed in with so many people. Even if anybody was paying attention, Allura and Romelle were much more visible and lot louder, laughing hysterically with Veronica and another girl as the whole group tripped over each other dancing in a circle.

Keith was having an unexpectedly good time. He got a little braver as the music changed and Rachel switched up her moves, trying to copy some of Antonio’s swaying steps as he danced with the woman in the very high heels. Pretty much the only solid rule here seemed to be to keep up with the music and be unapologetically loud.

About three music changes in somebody grabbed him from behind, making him almost trip over his own foot. Fingers hooked into his belt loops, giving him a bit of a push.

“Tus caderas,” Lance’s voice sounded in his ear, not quite slurred but definitely happier than usual. “You have to move your hips, make them match your feet.”

Lance pulled him back against him by the hips and tried to guide him with his hands, leaving Keith basically sandwiched between him and Rachel. He faltered and locked up, effectively throwing Lance off balance as well. It was on sheer reflex that he managed to turn and catch the other pilot before he went down.

“Are you trying to help me or use me as a crutch?” Keith asked dryly, trying to recover.

Lance was completely trashed, half-laying in Keith’s grip and giving that stupidly charming smile he always gave when he flirted. His hair was a ridiculously adorable mess and his face was flushed, and Keith didn’t think he’d ever felt more fond of the idiot.

“Si,” Lance chirped, doing that finger gun motion he and Pidge were always doing.

“Okay, I think he’s done,” Keith told Rachel as she helped him pull Lance back up to his feet.

He draped one of Lance’s arms around his shoulders and gripped his waist, supporting him so he wouldn’t fall over. There was no way he was going to last for more than another thirty minutes, tops. Keith half-carried him over to the edge of the dance floor with Rachel making a path for him, stopping when he reached the spot where Allura and Romelle were sitting on the floor leaning against each other and giggling uncontrollably.

“Hey, I’m taking Lance home,” he told Veronica. “Maybe I should drop them off too.”

“Already?” Veronica asked. She was very obviously drunk as well, but handling a lot better. “It’s only…I don’t know. Early?”

“It’s almost midnight,” Keith corrected, checking his phone. Was it really that late already? It hadn’t felt like that much time passed. “Come on, they’re new at this, give them a break. If you help me get the girls to the car I can drop them off and you can stay.”

Veronica and Rachel helped get Allura and Romelle to their feet, but the trip to the car was like herding cats. Both McClain sisters were easily distracted and they all kept stopping to laugh at things. It took a few minutes to get everyone out to Lance’s car and another few minutes to get the girls in and buckled up once Lance was dumped in the front seat.

When it was done and Keith slid into the driver’s seat, he was mildly surprised to find he wasn’t irritated. He didn’t really have anywhere to be, and all the laughter was a nice sound. A little high pitched and loud maybe, but tolerable. He didn’t even mind it too terribly when all three of them started singing. From an outside perspective the situation was actually funny given how serious they all could be sometimes.

He dropped off the girls first. They weren’t really sobered up but the cool air had calmed them down a little, and they were able to walk into the house under their own power. Keith had to hold each of them by an arm and guide them so they didn’t fall off the path into the grass of the front yard, but they made it. When they were inside he got them some water and helped Romelle order and prepay for a pizza, and left them once he was sure they could handle themselves.

Lance was dozing in the front seat of the car when he returned. He’d semi-passed out as soon as they’d pulled into the driveway and hadn’t budged since, but he woke up when Keith started the car back up.

“Turtles,” he said in a panic, sitting up quickly and nearly choking himself on the seat belt.

“Sure,” Keith indulged. Lance rubbed his eyes to try and make them focus, then put his window down further in an attempt to sober up.

“Where’s everybody?” Still slurred a little. Becoming more aware, but definitely still drunk. His hair was still sticking out all over the place and Keith didn’t bother to hold back his smile since there was nobody else to see.

“Your brothers and sisters are still at the bar. We just dropped Allura and Romelle off at home. I’m taking you home now.”

He glanced over at the hot mess in the passenger seat and felt a familiar pang of friendly loyalty. It was rare, but he felt it sometimes.

“Do you want to crash at my place so your parents don’t see you like this?”

“Oh, God, parents,” Lance whimpered, sliding down in his seat as much as the seat belt would let him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

At the next corner he made the turn to go to the apartment complex. Lance was mostly quiet for the rest of the ride, except for repeatedly asking what time it was and then immediately forgetting the answer. By the time they parked in front of the apartment Keith was just tossing random numbers at him and not even looking at the clock.

Matt’s car was still outside, which wasn’t unusual. Keith could hear the soundtrack of a horror movie drifting down the hall from Shiro’s room as he helped Lance into the apartment, the bedroom door was open since there had been nobody home for them to bother. They kicked off their shoes and Keith steered Lance down the hall to his room, letting them in quietly so he didn’t bother his brother.

Well, brothers. For someone who’d been born an only child, Keith had squired a decent handful of adopted siblings over the last few years.

He made Lance sit on the bed, turning on the UV light over the head of his bed instead of the bright overhead lights, and went to the kitchen to get him some water. Keith didn’t know what he’d been drinking, but his hangover was probably going to suck. When he returned Lance had gotten up and started poking around the room. He was standing over by the desk, and Keith felt a sliver of horror when he saw the sketchbook in his hands.

“That’s private,” he complained, crossing the room to take the book back. Lance held it just out of his reach, lifting it up to show the page he was looking at.

“Is this me and Red?”

Heat crept up Keith’s neck. He turned his eyes away from the sketchbook and refused to look at it, already knowing perfectly well what page Lance was asking about. The sketch was terrible and Keith hated it, a page covered with erasure marks and stray lines that told a narrative of him being unable to get the angles and shapes right.

There were dark strokes from too much pressure as he grew more and more frustrated, but he had refused to throw the sketch away in the end. He kept telling himself he would come back to it when he was better, because the subject matter made it a labor of love.

“It’s a mess,” he answered curtly.

Now that Lance had actually seen the spectacular failure he hated it even more. He’d never claimed his art was actually getting better with the class, but he wasn’t happy that anyone had seen how bad he really was. He offered the water bottle to Lance, and when the other pilot reached for it he snatched the sketchbook out of his hand. He tore the sketch out of the book and balled it up, tossing it in the wastebasket.

“I thought it was cute,” Lance frowned.

“You’re also drunk,” Keith pointed out. “Drink your water.”

Lance did as he was told, continuing to poke around the room as he did. Keith sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, taking note of which things he picked up to inspect more closely and which he didn’t seem interested in. After he’d investigated pretty much everything there was to investigate, Lance looked around at the space itself.

“I like your room,” he decided. “It’s lived in.”

“Well, yeah?” Keith glanced around. “Because I live here.”

“No, I mean it’s not empty. It’s not the kind of room somebody keeps if they plan on taking off.”

“You’re still really bothered by me joining the Blade of Marmora, aren’t you?” Keith asked. It was another thing he’d never wanted to talk about, because he knew he’d never be able to explain himself the way he wanted. “Are you ever going to let it go?”

“Why wouldn’t I still be bothered?” Lance sat unsteadily on the edge of the desk. “I came to talk to you because I thought we were getting closer, and through that whole conversation you never bothered to tell me you were thinking about leaving. I left your room feeling like maybe I had somebody at the Castle I could lean on like everyone else had, and then the next thing I know the friend I thought I’d made was walking out the door. You’re all hugs and smiles when you left, then you show up a couple weeks later after your own personal Doctor Who episode and literally shove me aside when I come near you.”

When it was put like that, it sounded pretty bad. Keith had never seen the situation from that point of view, in his experience he had left the Castle and his friends for a two-year trip and had returned feeling like they were almost strangers. He had forgotten most of their quirks and the closeness was gone on his part.

“I’m sorry.” Keith meant it, it wasn’t just an empty apology. “I always thought you were just mad I left you all to do the fighting, I didn’t realize you took it personally.”

“Well I did,” Lance grumbled. “I was trying to give you a hug when you came back and you just shoved me away in front of everyone. It wasn’t even like you insulted me in private.”

Keith tried to think back to his return. So much had been going on then and he’d had so much on his mind. Lotor, the Alteans, Romelle. The visions he’d had in the quantum abyss, the need to get the word out about the concentrated quintessence. Lance had just been a noise in the background, and he’d treated him like it.

“I never meant to make you feel like you weren’t important,” Keith said carefully. He really did not want to word this the wrong way, especially when Lance was drunk and he might do more harm than good. “You were. But there were other things in the heat of the moment that were also important. Not necessarily _more_ important, just more…urgent.”

“Yeah I know, I was there.” Lance sounded aggravated, but Keith was pretty sure he’d worded his answer as delicately as he could. “Stale cookie Lotor and his murder spree. But you never talked about it once all that was over. You never said you were sorry. You just pretended it didn’t happen.”

He picked up a kneadable eraser from the desk, smashing it between his fingers and glaring at it as best he could with unfocused eyes. Keith left him to it, until Lance got tired of the eraser and tossed it carelessly onto the desktop. He looked back at Keith, the annoyance gone and replaced something akin to tiredness.

“Can I hug you now?”

It was an unexpected jump. Keith thought they were going to escalate into a fight, he’d been preparing to argue with a drunk man. The request was a far preferable turn of events; he smiled a little and stood up, opening his arms.

“I guess I owe you one.”

Lance slid off the desk and padded over, catching Keith by the hips. His hands slid around and up to his middle, pulling him close in a way that was far more intimate than the kind of hug he thought was coming and pressed their bodies close in very different places than he’d prepared for. Lance rested his head on Keith’s shoulder, burying his face against his neck.

Definitely not the kind of hug Keith had ever had before. But also definitely not a bad kind.

He hugged Lance back, moving them over to sit on the bed in case the other boy’s legs were still unsteady, and as soon as they were seated Lance pulled them both all the way down. It left them laying across the bottom of the bed sideways, facing each other, with Lance’s head tucked under Keith’s chin.

Keith’s heart was pounding. He was having a hard time believing anything that happened today was real, but especially this. Lance’s body was warm, his hair was soft, the fingers of one of his hands toyed with the hem of his shirt in a way that sent teasing little shocks up his spine. It was intimate, it was thrilling, and it was admittedly more than a little bit arousing.

It also wasn’t going to go any further. Keith was a lot of things, many of them less than good, but he wasn’t a person who took advantage of someone who was intoxicated.

“You should get some sleep,” he advised, running his fingers lightly through Lance’s messy hair. It was the one indulgence he allowed himself tonight. “You’re going to feel terrible in the morning. You, uh, don’t need help taking your jeans off, right?”

Lance heaved a sigh and rolled away from Keith, sitting up. He managed to get his own shirt off then started on his jeans and Keith forced his eyes upward, focusing instead on a little swirl of color on the back of Lance’s shoulder. Lance managed to kick off his pants then flop back down in his boxers.

“Hey,” Keith reached over to lightly touch his shoulder, tracing the strange swirls. They were most vivid down by his right hand, fading when they reached his chest. “I saw these at the hospital, but they were lighter then. What is it?”

Lance held up his arm, looking at the patterns.

“Blanko’s lines. Blacho lines. I don’t know, some kind of b-word,” Lance wasn’t slurring his words at all anymore, but he obviously wasn’t up to par. “Doctor said people all have invisible stripes. He thinks you can see mine here because of the quintessence that went through my arm during the last fight. They’re clearer here under your black light. They were a lot darker a few months ago, they’re fading now.”

He gave a goofy, drunken smile and reached up to lightly poke Keith’s cheek.

“So I have stripes just like you,” he cooed. “Not as cute though.”

Keith couldn’t help the smile that tugged his lips as Lance’s arm dropped back down to cover his eyes. He got up and left him for a moment, going back to the kitchen for another bottle of water. When he returned with that and a bottle of aspirin, Lance had righted himself on the bed and was lying face down in a pillow. Keith set the water and aspirin on the bedside table and turned off the light, quietly closing the door behind him as he left.

Shiro’s door was still open and he could still hear the movies playing. He poked his head in to let them know he was home, finding the two idiots sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed under blankets watching the TV from way too close.

He closed Shiro’s door behind him and made himself some toast, then threw himself onto the sofa in the living room to sleep.

* * * * * * * * * *

An earth-shattering series of clangs made Keith sit bolt upright, throwing off the blanket tossed haphazardly over his legs in a panic. His first thought was that he didn’t know where he was, his second was that he didn’t know what was going on. His third was the realization that he had been sleeping on the sofa in his living room, and that Matt was currently standing over him holding two frying pans.

“What. The hell,” Keith groaned, rubbing his eyes. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

“No self control and a trash personality,” Matt answered. He grinned over the back of the sofa, into the kitchen where Keith could see Shiro leaning against the counter with both hands covering his mouth as if that would somehow hide that he was laughing. “What are you doing in the living room?”

“Sleeping, obviously,” Keith grumbled, sitting all the way up and stretching. He’d never bothered to take his jeans off and now his waist was achy where they’d pressed into him for hours. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven,” Shiro answered. “We would’ve let you sleep, but we were thinking of going out for breakfast and wanted to know if you wanted to co-“

Keith’s bedroom door opened and Lance came tearing out, his shirt draped over his arm and still buttoning his jeans. He pulled the shirt on as he zipped out the door, only to reappear a few seconds later to grab his boots from the mat. When he patted his pockets, Keith picked up his car keys from the coffee table and tossed them to him. Lance caught them, giving Shiro a very panicked and sloppy salute, and ran back out the door.

Matt and Shiro stared after him. Shiro managed to look back at Keith through his shock.

“Was that the weirdest walk of shame I’ve ever seen that just happened?”

“Oh my God, no!” Keith exclaimed, winging one of the throw pillows at him over the counter. “Can you get your mind out of the gutter for five minutes? He never told his parents he wasn’t coming home, he has to get back before they wake up.”

“Well, we now know two things now that we didn’t before,” Matt told Shiro. “One, Lance is a boxers man. And two, our little boy can’t close a deal.”

Keith got up from the sofa and smacked Matt in the face with another pillow. He stormed down the hall to his room, calling a very curious Kosmo along with him.

“Bring me back pancakes!” He yelled back to them before slamming his door shut.

He shimmied out of his jeans and into a pair of shorts, ditching his shirt and falling face-first down into his bed. He remembered promising to talk to Allura today but it was early and he definitely had time to get a few more hours in. If she made it at all through the hangover she probably had.

He wrapped himself in his blanket and hugged one of his pillows, pleased to be somewhere more comfortable. There was an extra little something there as well, something he found very pleasant and calming as he closed his eyes and waited to drift off.

Everything still smelled like Lance.


	9. Chapter 9

There was a pain in Allura’s back and an ache in her head. Her memory was a vague mish-mash of colors and noise, and her mouth tasted like cotton balls. It wasn’t the first hangover she’d ever had—Altea had fermented beverages and even princesses snuck out on occasion—but it was certainly the first she’d had in a long while.

She opened her eyes to too much sunlight and a view of underneath the sofa, which was made possible by the fact that she was bent backwards around the living room coffee table. That solved the mystery of the pain in her spine, so at least all of her suffering was now accounted for.

Allura pushed herself up carefully into a sitting position, taking stock of the cataclysm laid out in the room. There were two pizza boxes on the coffee table, surrounded by scattered mugs and glasses of various beverages. Some brunette guy who she thought might have been the delivery boy was asleep in the recliner, invited back after his shift by Romelle.

Romelle herself was laying face-down across the ottoman, and Veronica was passed out on the floor. Rachel was asleep on the sofa, curled up a little too intimately with one of the girls they’d met at the bar.

Allura got up, feeling her head spin as she tried to navigate to the kitchen. She tripped over Veronica and banged her shin on the end table, quietly cursing up a storm as she stumbled out of the main perimeter of the mess. Veronica sat bolt upright, muttering something about turtles.

The kitchen clock said it was a little past eight, at least as far as Allura could tell through squinted eyes. She leaned heavily on the island counter on her way to the coffee maker, and tried not to be sick at the sight of the filled candy bowl nearby. She rested her head on her arms on the counter, listening to the steady drip-drip-drip of the coffee maker until she heard someone else come into the kitchen. It was Veronica, followed a moment later by Romelle.

“Who’s the guy in the living room and who does he belong to?” Veronica asked, also squinting painfully.

“Pizza delivery guy,” Allura mumbled into her arms. “He’s Romelle’s.”

“Oh thank God, it’s somebody else’s mistake for once.”

“I’m starting a petition to punish whoever thought it was a good idea to let us be adults,” Romelle groaned, face-down on the island.

Allura reluctantly straightened up to get some mugs from the cabinet, then opened the refrigerator to get cream. She also took out a cell phone that was sitting on the top shelf and a set of keys from the butter tray.

Romelle was already filling the mugs. She pocketed her phone and Veronica took back her keys, and the three of them prepared their coffee and returned to the living room. Rachel was still splayed on the sofa but was sitting up now, and her guest was straightening her skirt in the foyer mirror in preparation to leave.

Somebody knocked on the door. Allura sank down to sit on the arm of the sofa while Veronica went to open it, revealing Lance leaning against the door frame like he might fall over.

Exactly what Allura needed on top of her hangover. Joy.

“Hi,” the girl in the hallway chirped to Lance on her way out. “And bye.”

He didn’t even look at her. No great surprise now that Allura knew he was flirting around with the cranky little trash monster. She knew it wasn’t great of her to blame Keith, but his jerkish behavior lately made it so easy and satisfying to do.

Veronica leaned against the door, matching Lance’s stance.

“’sup,” she greeted tiredly.

“I just had to climb in my bedroom window, pretend I was home all night, and claim I was going for a jog to escape,” Lance looked like he was going to be ill, and the way he tried to block the light from his eyes said he probably had a skull-splitting headache. “I need somewhere to die in peace where Mom and Dad can’t see.”

“What’s in it for me?”

Lance held up a paper bag. “Empanadas.”

Veronica considered it for a moment, then took the bag and motioned with her head for him to come in. Her wince said she very much regretted the motion. Lance dragged himself in and dropped onto the sofa between his sister and Allura. Rachel patted his head.

“Where’d you go?” Veronica asked.

“Slept at Keith’s.”

 ** _At_** _Keith’s, or **with** Keith?_ Allura thought glumly.

“Can I use someone’s shower?” Rachel asked lazily. “I smell like Jose Cuervo and questionable life choices.”

“Is that our new family motto?” Lance mumbled. “Who’s the dude in the chair?”

“Pizza delivery boy,” Veronica answered.

“Yours?”

“Romelle’s.”

“Welcome to the family,” Lance said to Romelle. “We have a new motto you might be interested in.”

“You can use mine,” Veronica offered Rachel in reference to the shower. “Come on, I’ll get you some clothes to borrow.”

They shuffled out, doing their best to not complicate their headaches. Romelle pulled the very startled pizza delivery guy out of the chair by his leg and dragged him out front, leaving him on the lawn and closing the door in his face. She returned for her coffee and muttered something about clean clothes on her way out of the room.

Allura felt mildly sick in a way that had nothing to do with the hangover. She slid down off the sofa arm to sit next to Lance, absently tapping her mug.

“Crazy night last night,” she murmured, not sure what else to say.

“Life lesson,” Lance answered with a little smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Like dirt. You?”

“A little worse than dirt.”

Allura returned the smile and offered him her mug. She suddenly felt like she couldn’t stomach anything anyway. He protested at first, but accepted when she insisted she didn’t want it.

She leaned back against the arm of the sofa, watching him sip at the hot liquid carefully. His hair was growing out lately, displaying a natural curl at the ends that didn’t show when it was short, and the summer sun had brought out a scattering of faint freckles across his nose. His jaw was a little sharper these days than when they’d first met, a sign he was growing out of teenagerish cute and into adult handsome.

“You know, now that you’re feeling better, we should do something,” she suggested. “Hunk was talking about a party for your Halloween holiday, maybe we could go together.”

As she said it, she was a dizzy mix of optimism and gloom. Keith hadn’t sounded very solid about anything so maybe there was a chance. She found it difficult to believe that girl-crazy Lance would suddenly switch gears so quickly that he’d completely prefer another boy over her. It just didn’t make sense. Still, at the same time she was very aware that he hadn’t exactly been receptive to most of her overtures.

Lance lowered the mug from his lips and frowned, looking uncomfortable.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh, well, not a party then,” she supposed, her stomach sinking. “There’s an autumn festival in that park across town next weekend, maybe that?”

“Allura—”

“Or not,” she said quickly. She knew from his face he was working up to a full rejection, but it was difficult to just give up. “We could do a movie, you like those, or maybe one of your museums…”

“Allura.” He nudged her with his elbow to make her stop and she fell silent, chewing her lip.

His expression told her everything she needed to know. Maybe she’d been one of his choices before—his only choice even—but not anymore. She’d suspected for a long time that she’d messed up her chance, and really she had no one to blame but herself for treating him like nothing more than a backup. But it still hurt.

“I’m really not the guy for you,” Lance said quietly. “I wanted to be, but I’m not. There’s a reason you chose Lotor over me.”

“Do you really have to rub that in right now?” She asked bitterly, wiping at her eye. Surely she was only tearing up from her headache.

“That’s not what I mean,” Lance backtracked. “Look, ignoring the secret genocidal hobbies, the man had a lot going for him. He had looks, he had personality, he was royalty. He could literally kick most peoples’ asses, and he treated you like a queen. You picked him because you knew what you wanted, and you knew what you deserved.”

“Well I was obviously wrong,” Allura said sadly. “Everything about him was fake, and I fell for it.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know that. He seemed perfect, he was everything you were looking for. All I have going for me is that he hurt you and I’m the opposite of everything he was. But being serious for a second here, that really just means I’m the opposite of everything you’re looking for. I’m just the safe bet because I’d never hurt you like he did.”

Lance leaned forward and sat the mug on the coffee table, rubbing his pained temples and getting up from the sofa. He went over to the window and closed the blinds, blocking out some of the light before coming back and sitting on the cushion edge.

“You are…absolutely amazing,” he said sincerely. “You’re like, this warrior princess goddess, you’re Wonder Woman times a hundred. So much has been happening and you haven’t really had a chance to get over him, but you definitely will because you don’t need some man to be awesome. And once you’re back on your feet, and you don’t need the safe bet anymore, all I’ll still be is the opposite of what you were looking for.

“You’re not cooped up in the Castle with only six other people anymore,” he gestured with both hands, indicating the world outside the window. “There are literally billions of guys out there. I’m not the math person, but if you ask Pidge she’ll probably give you the statistics on how many of them are exactly what you’re looking for. Then Veronica will help you catch one.”

“You’re not the opposite of everything I wanted,” Allura frowned, looking down at her hands. “I think I just didn’t realize how much you had to offer before it was too late. That I assumed you’d always be there whether I paid attention or not. And when I say that out loud, it really does sound very selfish.”

“I think you’re allowed to be selfish where your heart’s concerned,” Lance answered, letting himself settle back into the sofa. “You lost a lot, then you gave a lot more. I don’t think it’s all that bad to expect something in return from the world, or to try and make sure you get it.”

He was being too kind. But that was Lance…he was always kind, to everyone, even when he was barely treading water on his own. She knew deep down that she’d taken advantage of that, or at least tried to, and that she didn’t really have a right to be upset right now. But she was upset, because it never felt good to lose even if you deserved to.

Her phone vibrated from where it was lying on the coffee table and she tiredly checked it. It was a message from Keith, letting her know he’d be on the base from noon onward. He was one of the last people she wanted to talk to right now, but if he was going to give her a chance to clear the air she was going to take it.

“I better go grab a shower too,” she sighed, gingerly getting to her feet. “I have to go do some training today. But…thank you. For being honest with me.”

“Are we still going to be friends, or will this make things weird?” Lance asked. “I don’t want things to be weird, I want you to still be my princess.”

Allura felt another pang of sadness, but she didn’t let it show. She smiled a little, brushing her insanely messy hair out of her face as she headed out of the living room.

“I can’t be your princess anymore, Lance. According to Keith, I’m a queen.”

“Also a very good new motto,” Lance called after her.

Allura made her way upstairs, where she found Romelle laying in the hallway halfway to her her room. Veronica was in her own room, laying across the bottom of her bed, and the sounds of Rachel in the shower could be heard as she passed. Allura went to the last door in the hall and let herself in, falling face down into her own bed.

She didn’t want Lance to be right. She wanted to make an easy switch over to him and have everything end in a happily ever after. She knew him, she trusted him, and she cared about him, why couldn’t that be enough for the universe?

Her family was gone, her people were gone, her planet was gone. She’d witnessed the destruction of the Castle of Lions, personally cut the last thread connecting her and Coran to the place they came from. Romelle was here now, and it sounded like there were others, but the entirety of Allura’s life had been shredded into pieces and she was left with next to nothing.

Was it too much to ask, as she tried to rebuild on her new adoptive planet, for something to work with someone familiar? So Lance wasn’t a prince. Or tall, or very well-muscled. He wasn’t stupid in the least but he could be scatterbrained and come off as not the brightest. And maybe he wasn’t serious enough most of the time.

But he was supportive and sweet. Surely that made up for a lot.

Allura stayed down for about an hour, then forced herself to shower and dress. She didn’t need her armor today but she was setting foot in an office building, so she fought herself tiredly into a crisp black pantsuit. She had a military uniform just like the rest of them, but she’d be damned if she’d wear the drab thing off the clock.

Lance and Rachel were asleep on the sofa as she left, borrowing Veronica’s car keys on the way. Allura didn’t have a car of her own and usually didn’t mind taking a bus if nobody could give her a ride, but she didn’t think she could handle the public today.

On Veronica’s advice, she stopped at a fast food place and got some french fries and water. They were hell to actually get down, but within a few minutes of stomaching solid food she began to feel a little better. When she reached the base she still had an hour until Keith would be arriving, so she pulled out the aspirin she’d shoved in her purse and reclined the driver seat to doze.

* * * * * * * * * *

 ** _Six months ago_** :

The pain in her head was like an ice pick, stabbing behind her eyes with a vicious insistence. The silence was a strange kind of torture to her ears, so eerily void of sound after the extensive noise of battle. Allura wasn’t even sure if her body worked anymore, her muscles wanting nothing more than to lie here unmoving.

“Anyone?” Hunk’s voice came over the comm, cracking slightly with exertion. So she wasn’t the only one awake. “Hello?”

“I’m here.” Labored coughing. Pidge was conscious as well.

Allura opened her eyes and looked around the cockpit. Only the most basic systems were online, but Blue wasn’t completely down yet.

“I’m here too.” Lance sounded as if it hurt to speak.

Allura stretched over to pull up her system monitor, feeling the cold flow of quintessence begin to run through her limbs as Blue began trying to recharge.

“Blue Lion checking in,” she grunted.

Her overlays began to boot back up, pulling in readings from around her. The other Lions were also beginning to be forcibly recharged. If something new didn’t show up to kill them shortly as they all instinctively feared, they were likely going to put themselves in the hospital.

“Did we do it?” Lance asked breathlessly. “Did we beat that thing?”

“I think so.” Keith spoke up for the first time. They’d all survived, then. It almost seemed like a miracle. “Atlas? What’s your status?”

Allura looked out across the rocky terrain, at the glimmering hull of the behemoth that lay there in silence. That ship had not been built to transform, she knew that. Samuel Holt was a brilliant man, but there were limitations to what he could do with the information he had taken.

But the ship alone wasn’t the only part of the equation. Allura had felt something else in the heat of the fight, a rippling through the quintessence field that she knew. What changed the ship was the same force that helped to forge Sincline, and also possibly Voltron.

Alchemy. Specifically, the White Lion.

“Atlas, are you reading me?” Keith tried again, but there was no response. “They’re offline.”

Not too surprising. The sleek new form had probably made it easier to maneuver in an instinctual way, but with Earth’s gravity acting on it the advantage was lost to slow speed. It hadn’t really been a match for that thing here, but she did wonder if the situation would have been different in space.

The soothing blue of her cockpit lights clicked over to a glaring red, alarms going off. Allura began frantically checking her systems, afraid at first that something was wrong with Blue.

“What is that?” Lance’s voice brought her to the outward sensors, which were now showing energy patterns rising from the robeast at their feet.

“Surge indicators,” Pidge’s voice was unsteady. “Coming from that thing.”

“I thought it was down!”

“It is!” Hunk answered. “…oh no.”

“What?” Keith prompted.

“It’s powering up. It must have some kind of self-destruct mechanism.”

“According to my readings, the blast radius alone will envelope half the Earth!”

Allura felt a cold rush of dread drop through her body. Half the Earth? The whole planet would be destroyed. Another planet, another people, gone just like her own. People she had come to think of as a new family, the place she had assumed she would now call home when this was all over.

“Then we need to get it out of here,” Keith ordered.

The Lions had barely recharged enough to run their basic systems. Allura knew with absolute certainty that they were looking at a do-and-die situation, the only way they were going to get enough power to move this thing was if they damaged themselves beyond repair. But it all came down to the simple question of whether they were willing to let an entire planet die with them.

They weren’t.

Allura edged Blue’s power level up, feeling the cool trickle of quintessence begin to become a warming surge. They wouldn’t be able to arm any weapon systems or engage in any fights, but she felt the vibration of thrusters starting up as she guided Blue into position.

Red and Black were the next to maneuver into place and power up, followed by Yellow and Green. All five fired up and started to rise, but the thrust they managed was only a fraction of normal.

“Come on…come on…” she heard Keith hiss to himself, and she identified with his frustration. Her muscles were screaming and her brain was on fire, she could only imagine what those who couldn’t handle the overload were going through.

As they rose she got another glimpse of the Atlas, where she knew Coran would be watching. Somehow, she felt dying would have been easier if he weren’t there to see it.

_I’m sorry, Coran. But if anything should be the final legacy of Altea, then let this sacrifice be it._

The pain she was feeling steadily grew, but she didn’t dare indulge it. Billions of innocent lives were at stake below, she wouldn’t lose a single one of them to her own weakness. And it was going to take even more than they’d already given to get this thing through the upper layers of the atmosphere.

Everyone was silent, wrapped up in their final thoughts and struggles. She couldn’t see their faces since her visuals were down and she was glad…she didn’t want their last sight of her to be the tears of regret on her face.

“It’s been an honor flying with you all,” Keith’s voice was firm in its final send off, with no reluctance. “Now everyone give it everything you’ve got.”

Allura turned off her overlays. She turned off her sensors, quieting the blaring alerts, and shut down all but the bare minimum of the lighting. She muted the radio, allowing her cockpit to fall into silence aside from the roar of struggling thrusters.

“Last mission,” she whispered to Blue, resting her hands lightly on the controls and closing her eyes. “Time to go out with a bang.”

Allura focused all of her attention on Blue, feeling her presence and the energy running through her. She reached out as far as she could, into every plane she had access to, opening herself up to let as much power as possible flow through her to her Lion. The roar of engines faded away, the heat in her limbs ebbing into a cool numbness. The hot air becoming stale in her helmet was replaced by a gentle breeze.

When she opened her eyes she saw stars. Trillions of tiny diamonds on a backdrop of infinity, with an unfamiliar constellation circled around a pair of red and blue lights. She was here, and yet at the same time she wasn’t. Her skin looked to be made of starlight, her blood running through her in visible veins of gold. Her heart felt like it beat in time with the pulse of the universe.

Allura wasn’t alone. To her left she could see Lance, and Hunk to her right, with Keith and Pidge next to each of them to complete the circle. There were ribbons of light wrapped around them all, threads binding them to each other and to the world around them in a complicated web of entanglement. Power coursed through them as they gave themselves over to their last living effort, forcing every bit of quintessence into their lions that their frail bodies could handle.

Pidge succumbed first, falling limply forward, bonds shredding away to nothing and the delicate astral avatar shattering like glass as it hit the ground. Hunk lasted a heartbeat longer before meeting the same fate, falling unconscious and disconnecting. Allura held on. Every bit more she could give was a bit more they didn’t have to. But she knew she didn’t have much left.

She felt herself going and looked over at the others. Keith, who seemed strangely composed for his final moments, and Lance who should have fallen by now. There were shadows about them both, a halo of black that ghosted around Keith and a fog of red that seemed almost to be standing behind Lance in support.

Lance’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t fade like the others, but was there one moment and gone the next. Allura thought she saw Keith open his eyes to look at her—amethyst Galra eyes—but she was suddenly slammed back into her body with force.

There was a gaping, painful emptiness that ran through her whole body, a complete absence of Blue’s presence. As if the bond had been intentionally cut.

They were past the outer atmosphere, into open space. Blue’s systems began to act of their own accord, some shutting down and some booting regardless of Allura’s hands on the controls. Their was a shine outside the cockpit, her particle barrier raising with all available power and focusing itself in the front.

The robeast began to glow, followed by a flash of burning light. Allura fell into black.

_Mother? Father? Tell everyone I’m finally coming home._

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day:_ **

Her phone alarm went off in the center console, letting Allura know nap time was over. It was twelve-thirty and she felt somewhat better, at least enough to get through the afternoon

The base had a smaller staff on weekends but it was still open. She said hello to a few familiar faces on her way to the second floor and down the hall to Keith’s office, finding the door open and him at his desk. There were papers in front of him but whatever he was working on had been mostly forgotten, he was staring into space with a dazed little smile on his face.

She was fairly certain she knew why.

It disappeared as soon as he saw her in the doorway. She’d always thought he’d been standoffish with her, but now at least she knew he had a reason. She could sort of sympathize, now that she knew what it was like to want someone’s attention so badly but not be able to have it.

Not that it excused the little quiznaker he’d been behaving like lately.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as she came in.

“Better than I was this morning. Thank you for bringing us home.”

“Well, I don’t hate you, so…”

Allura wasn’t sure how people voluntarily spoke with Keith one on one. She didn’t know if he’d meant to answer that way or if it was just his notoriously bad relationship with words. But it was easier to just take the sentence literally and assume it wasn’t an insult, so that’s what she did.

“Good, because I need you to not hate me so this team can function again.” She leaned against the edge of the desk instead of taking a seat, so she was looking down at him instead of the other way around. “Have you decided yet if you’re willing to stop being afraid and work with me?”

“I’m not afraid,” he said sharply. She’d chosen the word on purpose, knowing it would get under his skin. Keith had a lot of emotions roiling under the surface, all his poker face did was hide them. If he’d bother to ever learn a little diplomacy he’d be able to figure out how to control them as well. “I have…resignations.”

“About?”

“You.” He gathered up the papers scattered across his desk, shoving everything into a drawer in no particular order. Her little jab had gotten to him, he must have been thinking something similar before she’d arrived. “Your attitude, your methods, your prejudices. You have your own way of doing things and you’ll go around me if you think you know better. If you get something in your head you’re unstoppable, even if you’re wrong.”

“Wow, Keith, tell me how you really feel.”

“I _feel_ like I never got over how you treated me when you found out I was Galra.”

It was one of those rare moments when he was riled enough for the truth to slip out. He looked like he regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, so she knew they were honest. They also hit on one of her own insecurities; ever since Lotor, she constantly questioned her own judgement.

What had he said last night? _Any experience you have with the Galra beyond that is ten thousand years old and obsolete._

She had thought he was taking a jab at her leadership abilities in battle.  Now she was getting a different picture, one where his issues with her were close and personal.

“I was wrong,” Allura said, discomfort creeping up into her chest. Unlike the others tended to do, however, she refused to look away from him. “I admitted that. And I stand by the admission that I was wrong even now. I’ve trusted you with my life, with the lives of people I care about, over and over again. I trust your mother, I trust Acxa and Kolivan. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Keith let his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling and letting out a heavy breath. He really didn’t like being a leader, they could all tell, and now he didn’t even have Lance nearby to shore him up. But like it or not he was good at it, or at least good at the fighting and leading part. He was just going to have to get over being bad at the communication part.

“You think you’re wrong now,” he said finally. “But you’ll change your mind today.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You wanted me to trust you, right?” Keith asked, getting up from his desk. “Well, it means I’m going to trust you with something. If you’re sorry afterward, that’s not my problem. You asked for this, and I need someone to know. Come on, we’re going to the Atlas.”

He let her step out of the office first and locked it behind them, and they started the trek. The Atlas was berthed all the way across the base, which made her a little bit irritated. He’d obviously known they were going there, and he’d known she’d have a hangover, but he’d still clearly planned on making her take the long walk anyway.

When they arrived he had to let them on board with his hand print since she didn’t have access yet. All of the pilots were going to have codes since the Lions would be based here, but it was just one of those things nobody had gotten around to yet.

“Why here?” She asked as they walked along the quiet, empty halls of the giant ship. She could see a few members of the crew through open doors, sitting in offices or talking in a lounge. They were on their way to the training area.

“We’re going to bond,” he said sarcastically.

She considered bonding his head into one of the walls, and reassessed her initial thoughts on Lance staying over at his apartment. Clearly they didn’t sleep together, or he’d be in a much better mood.

The training room was similar to the one in the Castle. Initially it had just been a normal room, but in the last six months many other species had access to Earth, and the Olkari and Coran had helped add training drones and androids. Keith bypassed all of that to go to a drawer in the wall, opening it up and taking out two circlets.

They were similar to the bonding headpieces the Paladins had used in the beginning, but these were perfect circles with a single sensor that rested on the forehead. Keith handed her one and stepped out of the room, going up the stairs to the small control room. He had already thrown himself into one of the chairs there when she caught up with him, adjusting the circlet on his head.

“What are we doing?” She asked, taking the other chair. She had to shift her ponytail a bit to get the circlet onto her own head, making sure the sensor was settled firmly in place. “You’ve never shown any interest in seeing through my eyes before.”

“I’m still not interested,” he answered curtly. “Sit back and relax, I’m going to show you something from the quantum abyss.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Several years ago:_ **

“Want the stick? Go get the stick!”

Keith threw the bit of green wood in his hand, making sure it went high enough for the small wolf’s eyes to follow. It arced up and landed several yards away in a clear spot in the grass, perfectly easy to see, and the little canine went nuts. He ran around in a circle then stopped, wagging his tail and looking up at Keith expectantly.

“You have to go get it,” Keith instructed, pointing. “Go get it!”

The cub dropped down with his tail in the air, wagging it again, then hopped up and ran around in circles again. He stopped and looked back up at Keith, tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“That’s not how this works,” Keith sighed, going to retrieve the stick himself.

He brought it back and held it out, and the pup grabbed it and ran over to the cave that had been their home for the last four months. Krolia was sitting at the opening, whittling a piece of wood with her knife, patient and relaxed as always. She was the opposite of Keith, who often paced aimlessly or spent hours marking off minutes with scratches on rocks.

Keith dropped down to sit beside her, letting himself slide down to lean against her side. She barely missed a beat, hooking her arm around him and continuing her work, and he turned his head to bury his face against her.

“You’re going to drive yourself crazy,” she warned, kissing the top of his head. “You need to learn how to sit still.”

She treated him with the same warm affection most mothers showed to young children, probably not difficult since he was so much smaller than she was. And quite frankly, he ate it up.

“If I sit still I start thinking,” he mumbled against her. “I don’t want to think, a storm is starting.”

It was a crackle on the air that heralded the quantum storms, and as time went on they were realizing that the visions they showed weren’t random. They were directly linked to things that were on one of their minds, which was part of the reason Krolia had taken to relaxing with a mindless activity when the first hints of electricity danced on the air.

Keith didn’t have that same focus, not with everything going on in the outside world. He knew there was nothing he could do to help while he was stuck here but he still felt like he _should_ , and that wore on him. Once he started thinking he couldn’t stop.

He lay where he was for a little while, feeling the air start to charge. He knew what was coming when it happened and closed his eyes, tensing as if he might be able to fend it off. But the wave of quantum energy couldn’t be held at bay, and he felt the prickling on the back of his neck as it washed over them.

* * *

_Keith sat in his assigned desk, middle of the front row where the teacher could keep an eye on him, and boredly watched the substitute putting the homework assignment on the board. The clock was ticking down the last minutes of the class, and he couldn’t wait to leave._

_A ball of paper soared past his face, landing neatly in the trash can at the other side of the room. He glanced over and saw a tall boy who he thought was here to become an engineer, grinning and pumping his fist in celebration._

_“Anybody can make that shot,” the boy with him declared. “Don’t go thinking you’re special.”_

_Keith didn’t know their names. People tended to stay away from him, which was fine with him, but it meant he never learned much about them. He knew a little about the shorter boy though, he was also in his flight training class. He was one of those people Keith wished he could be, always quick with a joke or a comment. Everybody liked him and he was never embarrassed, even if he did something dumb and got laughed at._

_He had pretty eyes, too. Nice eyes, Keith had never seen him glaring like James Griffin always did._

_“Can anybody make that shot?” The taller boy asked. “Okay Taylor, let’s see you do it.”_

_Taylor. That name was familiar, now that he thought of it he was sure he’d heard one or two other people call him that. Was it his first name or his last name though? It probably didn’t matter if that was what he went by._

_Taylor stole the taller boy’s notebook and tore a page out of it against his protest. He balled it up and grinned, making a show of shooting the paper ball toward the wastebasket._

_It didn’t even reach the rim, it hit the side of the can and bounced across the floor. Still, he was all the way on the other side of the room, if he wasn’t twisted weirdly in his desk he probably would have gotten it._

_“Nice shot, Taylor.”_

_The words came out before Keith could talk himself out of it. He wanted to be encouraging, maybe start a conversation on their way to their flight class next. Taylor and his friend seemed like the nicest people here, and probably his best chance at not spending his whole time at the Garrison alone._

_Taylor apparently didn’t feel the same way. He made a face as he got up and retrieved the paper ball, throwing it into the can._

_“Nobody asked you,” he grumbled on the way back to his friend._

_Keith immediately looked away, crossing his arms and sinking down into his chair. Apparently Taylor was just as much of a dick as everyone else here was. Keith hoped he and Griffin both ended up stuck as cargo pilots._

* * *

“Taylor?” Krolia asked as the vision faded. Her voice was neutral, but she was giving off an Angry Mom vibe that couldn’t really be reined in so easily. Keith really didn’t like letting her see so much of the bad times, it was just a waste of his energy to relive it and a waste of hers to worry about it.

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured, still draped against her. “I got him back in the next class. Knocked his plane out of formation in the simulator. Got him back a few times since, too.”

He didn’t really want to get into it. If that was the vein this storm was going in then there would probably be plenty for him to explain by the time it was over.

* * *

_The doctors all went down quickly and easily, which didn’t say much for the Garrison’s training. Personally, Keith had found it lacking while he was there, which was why he’d gone on to other, better teachers after he’d gotten kicked out._

_He yanked the bandanna off his face so he could see better, leaning over the unconscious man on the table._

_“Shiro?” He whispered, checking his pulse. It really was him, there was no question. His hair had gone white in one spot and he had a strange prosthetic on the arm he’d been having problems with, but it was definitely him._

_Keith pulled out his knife and cut the straps holding him down, hooking one of Shiro’s arms around his neck and pulling the barely-conscious pilot to his feet._

_“Nope, no,” a voice came from the doorway as a guy in jeans and a jacket barged in and kicked the gurney out of the way. Keith tensed, but he definitely wasn’t one of the Garrison soldiers. “No, no, no. No, you don’t. I’m saving Shiro.”_

_“Who are you?” Keith didn’t really mean to sound quite so antagonistic, but honestly, who the hell was this guy coming out of nowhere? And how did anyone else even know Shiro was here?_

_“Who am I? Uh, the name’s Lance.”_

_He batted his eyes, waiting for recognition. Keith thought he might look kind of familiar, but he wasn’t sure._

_“We were in the same class at the Garrison,” Lance prompted._

_“Really, are you an engineer?” Keith asked. Same class at the Garrison meant he was a cadet, that much was obvious. Keith frowned, completely ignoring whatever else came out of the other boy’s mouth in favor of picking through his memory. Lance wasn’t an engineer, Keith knew the engineers. It was the eyes that did it, the pretty blue eyes. Familiar blue eyes. Taylor. Lance Taylor?_

_“Oh, wait, I remember you. You’re a cargo pilot.”_

_“Not anymore, I’m fighter class thanks to you washing out.”_

_Really? This dude was going to come in here in the middle of what was basically a prison break and push his buttons over dropping out? Did he really have nothing better to do somewhere else?_

_“Well congratulations,” Keith muttered, starting to pull Shiro out the door. Apparently Lance had gotten a lot hotter, but was still kind of a dick._

* * *

Keith pulled away from Krolia, letting her go back to her whittling. He’d almost forgotten that first night when they’d rescued Shiro, how utterly antagonistic Lance had been to him. To this day he still didn’t know where this “rivalry” thing had come from, and now he wasn’t even sure if he was ever going to get back to ask about it.

He moved over to the other side of the cave mouth and leaned against the wall, calling the wolf cub over to his lap and watching the changing colors of the sky while he waited out the storm.

* * *

_Everything was on fire. Unnatural flames, artificially created by the druidic magics so highly favored by the Galra empire. The two combatants in the middle of the crumbling courtyard were tired, the white of their Paladin armor smeared with blood and dirt. The black under-armor was torn and sliced in places, showing painful wounds that neither had time to tend._

_Across the courtyard were bodies, clad in yellow and green and blue. Lifeless, broken, lying in pools of blood, they’d fallen early on to the blade of one they’d trusted._

_The red Paladin was down, trying to catch his second wind, but the black Paladin was having none of it. He summoned his dropped bayard and called his short sword, charging his opponent while he was down._

_The red rolled out of the way with less than a fraction of a second to spare, scrambling for the dropped red bayard that lay several yards away._

_The black pulled his sword out of the ground where the sharp blade had cut into the stone. He charged again, this time aiming for a deep midsection stab instead of a downward arc._

_The red grabbed his bayard. He turned to face his attacker, and in a moment of determination stepped forward to meet him. The bayard shone brightly for an instant, the metal bleeding out into a length of shining steel. The Altean broadsword nicked the ground as it came up, taking a wide arc that brought it slicing across the black Paladin’s face and bringing it down to damage the black bayard. The black short sword flickered away as the other Paladin's weapon was thrown from his hand._

_The helmet protected the wearer, but it could only take so much. It cracked and broke, falling away to reveal Keith’s angry glare. His eyes glowed softly, that backlit sclera of a quintessence-fueled Galra, framed by the two dark purple stripes on either side of his face and hardened by the glint of sharp canines as he snarled._

_Lance yanked off his own helmet and threw it aside, falling into a battle stance with the broadsword held ready. His face was flecked with smears of blood and his hair had streaks of lighter color running through it from the quintessence exposure of the place. He was out of breath, but determined not to die here._

_Keith looked over at his bayard, knocked several feet away, and gave up on it. Instead he pulled out his Marmora blade, activating it to its full size. Without giving Lance a chance to recover he charged again, knowing he could take advantage of the other’s lack of experience with a sword._

_The two met in the middle of the courtyard, to find out whether Galran or Altean steel was stronger._

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day:_ **

Allura opened her eyes and blinked in the darkness of the control room. Keith was sitting across from her still, chin resting on his hand, absently gazing down into the training room. She didn’t realize her hands were shaking until she went to take the circlet off.

“That’s not possible,” she whispered. It felt like talking too loudly was somehow a crime.

“So I keep telling myself,” Keith answered. “But who even knows anymore?”

“No, I mean it’s not possible,” Allura insisted. “That place, that courtyard, I know it. It’s no place you or Lance could ever go. That’s Oriande.”

“And Lance was never the red Paladin,” Keith pointed out. “I don’t really know how accurate these visions were, none of the future things I saw have happened yet. Maybe only some things are true, maybe none of them.”

Allura set the circlet down on the nearby control panel. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was beating fast. The links these training aids made could make everything feel so real, for a moment she really had been standing in the flames watching Keith about to kill Lance.

“Is that why you seemed upset when you found out he could summon the broadsword?” She asked. “And why Krolia was upset to see you in the black armor?”

“I took the black armor because Lance left the team,” Keith murmured. “He’s not a Paladin anymore, he can’t physically do it. I thought that since there was no way for him to take the red armor, maybe the future was changing. Some of it, at least.”

He tossed his circlet on the console as well, haphazardly and without care. Then he shrugged motioning to himself with both hands.

“So there you go. You were right from the beginning, I’m a threat. Maybe the details aren’t really the same, maybe it won’t be in Oriande and it won’t be as a Paladin, but I know the part about me losing control is probably truth. I've felt it happening before, I know it could happen again.

“I don’t want you leading my team. Ever,” he added. “Not while I’m running simulations and not while we’re in active combat. Pidge can handle that. What I want is you waiting in the wings. When the time comes and all of you need to take me down, you have enough leadership experience to step in then. And I don’t want to have a chance to study your tactics and give myself an advantage before that happens.”

Allura looked numbly from Keith to the circlet and back. It was little wonder he was always so out of sorts, trying to live a normal life while carrying this in secret.

“That’s why you were so calm about dying in the Last Stand,” she realized. “You already saw further on. And if you did die, then you avoided it. And now that you survived, you’ve been planning your own end all this time.”

“I’m not suicidal,” Keith defended. “I’m _trying_ to avoid this happening. Anything I can do to stop myself from turning into that, I’ll do it. But if I can’t stop it, somebody else has to. And you’re pretty handy when it comes to taking down Galra.”

“Keith—”

A blaring noise interrupted her as both of their cell phones went off. It was an emergency call, asking for one of them to contact Sam Holt at the Garrison base.

“We’ll talk about this later, so don’t think you’re getting away,” Allura said firmly, rising and returning the call. It only took a few seconds before she hung up and looked back at him. “Sam didn’t realize we were here. There’s something down in the lab he wants us to see.”

Keith followed her out of the control room and through the training room without a word. Allura’s head was spinning with what she’d seen as they made their way through the halls, out of the Atlas and across its hangar to the door that led down to the labs. He had to be blowing this out of proportion, who even knew if those visions were true? They didn’t know anything about the quantum abyss, it was possible those future snippets were from some other reality entirely.

Down in the lab, a guard who was expecting them buzzed them in and they met Sam up on a catwalk. Across the big room, some workers were dealing with a piece of the strange robeast that had attacked after the armada fight.

“That thing still gives me chills to look at,” she murmured as she came to stand beside him. “What’s the emergency?”

“Well, as you know, we’ve spent months recovering the pieces of this creature, but we never found its power source,” Sam told them. “Until now.”

He stepped down off the catwalk and Allura followed, though Keith hung back to look at the whole scene from above. As they approached a chunk that looked like it might have been somewhere near the head, Allura felt a chill go down her spine.

She could see between the two workers even before they moved out of the way, but as they stepped aside she couldn’t hold back her gasp. The form lying unresponsive within the section of robeast was unmistakable, she would have known one of her own even if not for the facial markings.

“An Altean?”


	10. Chapter 10

_**Current day**_ : 

Dismantling the Galra power supply was no easy task. Shiro had been notified of the discovery of a living Altean tucked into the machinery on Sunday afternoon, but it wasn’t until mid-morning on Monday that Sam called to let him know she’d been fully removed from the wreckage.

He watched through three-inch plate glass as her body was moved from a gurney to a bed, thick leather straps fastened around her ankles and wrists. One nurse hung the sedative bag hooked to her arm on the pole nearby while another hooked up sensors to monitor her vital signs.

“Shiro!” Allura ran breathlessly down the hall to meet them, looking as if she’d run the whole way from the Lion hangars. She stopped next to him, panting and pressing her hands and face to the glass. “Is she okay? Is she awake yet?”

Shiro glanced over at Kolivan, Krolia and Acxa, who had joined him since a meeting with them had been interrupted by the news, then to Keith, Pidge, and Hunk as they finally appeared after Allura. The Paladins all clearly shared Allura’s excited curiosity.

“Everyone calm down,” Shiro advised. “She’s not going to be awake for a while. We’re keeping her sedated until we get more information from that thing she was hooked into.”

“What?” Allura looked scandalized. “She’s been in there for months!”

“We need to ask her what happened to the Altean colony,” Keith agreed.

“We need to ask her a lot of things,” Shiro answered. He rested a hand on Allura’s shoulder and guided her away from the glass. “But there’s no guarantee she’ll answer.”

“Of course she would. How else would we help her save the others?”

The Paladins all made noises of agreement. Shiro looked over at the Blade members again, glad there were others here as jaded and wary as he was.

“Because,” he tried not to sound too harsh, but there was no nice way of saying it. “We don’t know yet if she was just the power source, or if she was the pilot.”

He was met with surprised silence. None of the younger pilots had entertained the possibility, and why would they? The Alteans were victims, Romelle was proof of that, and even after all they’d been through they were still optimistic enough to want to save everybody.

“The Altean colony may not need to be rescued,” Krolia spoke up from behind him. “We have to remember that they were convinced Lotor was their savior. Someone found those people before us, and the only way they could have done that was if they worked for Lotor. The Alteans may now be another threat we need to defend against.”

“All the more reason to talk to her, then,” Keith protested. “Show her the truth, convince her we want to help.”

“I understand where you’re coming from, I really do,” Shiro assured them, “and I promise you, she won’t be mistreated. But once Sam manages to access that mech’s information logs, we’ll be able to tell before she even wakes up what side she’s on. In the meantime, I’m going to have Romelle come in and see if she can identify her, and try to get some information on her personally. This could be a very delicate situation, and we’ll want to approach it with careful planning.”

“Is there anything I can do in the meantime?” Allura asked, looking back through the glass. “I don’t know if I can just sit around doing nothing.”

“In regards to this? Waiting is all you can do,” Shiro answered, following her gaze. “I’m sorry, Allura. I know it’s hard.”

“Yes, but you’re right. I can’t let my judgement get clouded by nostalgia for home.”

They all had the same look no their faces, and Shiro knew what was going through their heads. A year of constant warfare had honed their habits, and sitting around doing next to nothing for the last six months was making them nervous and twitchy. Drills, simulations, and practice runs were fine for a while, and he knew they didn’t necessarily _want_ war, but they needed a real task to tackle.

“You guys might want to go down to the lab and see if there’s anything you can do to help Sam,” he suggested. “Pidge, Hunk, maybe you can pull Voltron’s logs of the battle and see if anything it recorded from that mech was indicative of a conscious pilot. Allura, maybe take a picture of our guest here and talk to Romelle, so she’s prepared for what she’ll see if we bring her in. Every hand we have on deck makes this go faster.”

They nodded and Pidge ran off in the direction of the labs with Hunk at her heels. Allura took out her phone and got a picture of the unconscious Altean, heading back the way she’d come to contact Romelle. Keith remained, looking a little uncomfortable that there didn't seem to be a practical use for him at the moment. There was nothing more to be done here, the Altean woman was bound and sedated and a guard already ordered to be on the room at all times. Shiro motioned for the Galra to follow him back the way they’d come, steering Keith along with them.

“We’ll notify you before we do anything,” Shiro told Kolivan. “I’ll make sure you’re in the loop when we’re deciding how to handle this. You still haven’t heard anything about any similar mechs being seen?”

“None,” Kolivan answered grimly. “Earth has always been just beyond the farthest reaches of the Galra empire, it’s possible it came from even further and not from a known planet. Wherever it was built, it’s beyond the currently limited reach of Blade intelligence.”

“So there could be more we don’t know about, and we could get hit anytime,” Shiro surmised. “Especially if the Alteans are voluntary pilots. We may even have to deal with more than one at some point.”

“It might be time to try and upgrade the Lions,” Krolia suggested. “They were built with Altean alchemy, and Allura’s become skilled. With the help of Slav, perhaps, or the Olkari, maybe they can be strengthened. Or maybe more can even be made.”

“Those Lions were more advanced when they were made than almost all the tech in the galaxy now, ten thousand years later,” Shiro pointed out. “We still don’t even know their full potential, not to mention the potential of the Atlas. While I’d love to have more, it’s still a problem for us that we don’t even have qualified pilots for the five already on the base.”

“Not qualified, acceptable,” Keith corrected. “We’d never be able to replicate the Lions, even if we did manage to find a couple new trans-reality comets just lying around. They’re sentient. They don’t run on alchemy, they use it themselves. I don’t know how Alfor created them, but I don’t think even he knew what was going to come out of it. Saying for arguments sake we could build some more, I don’t think they’d ever move or link up like Voltron. I have a feeling they’d just be robots.”

“They do seem to evolve,” Kolivan agreed. “And since the last battle, they’ve only needed minor repair.”

“They’ve only _ever_ needed minor repair,” Shiro said. “For the most part, as long as their bond with their Paladin is strong enough to charge, they seem to fix and update themselves.”

“We could probably do with some armor upgrades though, maybe some new internal fixtures,” Keith supposed. “Pidge was able to add cloaking to Green, we could probably do a few minor adjustments like that to the others.”

“Better sensors?” Acxa suggested. “Maybe new algorithms for interpreting the data. Some new safety features in the cockpits couldn’t hurt either.”

They reached the doors leading out of the quarantine area and Shiro swiped his card to let them through. As a group they started across the hangar toward the open bay doors on the other side of where the Atlas sat berthed. Three of the five MFE pilots were on the ship doing checks on their jets, but two were just off the port quarter putting a fresh coat of paint over some recently repaired damage.

Lance and James both had several swipes of dark gray paint across their faces and the painter’s uniforms they wore, and neither looked happy to be working in the humid, open hangar. Which was very much the point of the punishment, they’d brought it on themselves. Shiro stopped to look at their work, which was at least fairly solid and not half-assed.

“Take a break, Airmen,” he allowed. “Ten minutes. Have some water.”

Lance lowered the extended paint roller he was using and leaned it against the ship, trying to wipe at some of the drying paint on his face with his sleeve. Both pilots were sweating and looked tired, having been at it since seven in the morning.

“Hey Kolivan,” Lance greeted. “Krolia. Acxa.”

It might have been Shiro’s imagination, but he thought Kolivan looked darkly amused at Lance’s predicament. He had often chastised Lance for his lack of decorum and self-control during the war, now was his I Told You So moment.

“Nice pajamas,” Acxa answered.

James snickered. Shiro shot him a look but he wasn’t paying attention and Lance, of course, couldn’t let it go once James laughed. He looked like he was going to try to say something scathing but at the last minute switched tactics, leaning back against the hull and smirking instead.

“The are, aren’t they?” He asked. “You should see them on your floor.”

“That can be arranged,” she answered without missing a beat. “Of course, you’d still be in them, and pretty badly injured.”

“Sounds kinky,” Lance, as usual, couldn’t leave well enough alone. “I do like aggressive women.”

“This aggressive woman can snap your spine like a toothpick,” Acxa wasn’t too fired up in her responses, having learned early on not to take human men she could easily murder seriously. “And with great pleasure.”

“Yeah, you seem like you offer one wild reverse cowg—”

“ _Lance_.”

It was Keith who called him to heel, realizing Shiro had no intention to. Eventually these boys were going to have to learn that running their mouths could get them pretty badly hurt, though in this case it looked like Keith was more riled by Lance’s banter than Acxa. Keith crooked a finger, silently calling him over.

He was visibly bigger than Lance these days, by a good couple of inches even though Lance would die before admitting the full extent of it. He looked slender for his height since he wasn’t bulky but Galra were bigger in general, so between the two of them he definitely had more of a presence. And Lance reacted to it, shoving away from the ship and coming as commanded.

Unconsciously, of course. Lance’s stance when he got there was the more aggressive of the two, arms crossed and a scowl on his face. They stood very close, leaning in to attempt to have a semi-private conversation, but Shiro could still hear them both.

“The suggestive crap isn’t cute. Knock it off.”

“She’s the one who had to make a comment about the stupid-looking painting clothes.”

“You’re the one who took it too far in the wrong direction.”

“She started the whole thing, I was returning fire.”

“Well I’m ending it, knock it off.”

“You know you’re not in charge of me anymore, right? I don’t actually have to listen to you.”

“Do you want to test that theory?”

Krolia shot Shiro a look and he shrugged ever so slightly. He wasn’t certain what was going on between the two of them since Saturday morning, as far as he knew they’d seen a movie and gone to a bar and that was the end of it. But something was definitely different.

Keith wasn’t being loud or threatening, or even very forceful, but his body language said he was laying down law. And after a few brief seconds of inner debate Lance apparently decided to follow it. He let out a huff and threw up his hands.

“I was just messing around,” he said out loud. “She’s more Griffin’s type anyway.”

“I think that’s worse than any of the other insults,” Acxa said blandly.

“Hey!” James exclaimed. Acxa didn’t even notice.

“So you’re both grounded for the next two days? No missions, no drills, no nothing?” She asked. “Not even the war games going on tomorrow?”

“Barring absolute emergency,” Shiro answered for them. “We have the other three MFEs and the four Lions, and plenty of drones for the cadets. We can spare two troublemakers.”

The Blade of Marmora had helped to develop a full-range simulation that would involve the Lions, the MFEs, and several Galra strikers that had been re-purposed as fighters for the Blade members based here. All in all it was just another drill, but on a much bigger scale and with more participants. Even the cadets were going to be in on this one, plugged in through the flight simulators for live training, flying drones.

Basically, it was the kind of thing pilots lived for, and the kind of thing it was really going to hurt Lance and James to miss.

Shiro checked his watch. “Five more minutes, if you guys are going to get water or use the restroom now is the time.”

“Okay, okay, going,” Lance sighed. He and James headed for the door into the interior building, and Kolivan excused himself to take a call that was coming in. Acxa had come separately from the others and decided she was ready to leave as well.

That left Shiro with Keith and Krolia. She also had to go join Kolivan, but she gave Keith a big hug and told him to come to her place for dinner that night before leaving. Shiro waited until everyone else was out of earshot before he turned to his dear little brother.

“What was _that_?” He asked, not even bothering to hide his grin.

“What was what?” Keith got that wide-eyed looked that said he knew he was in for something terrible, but wasn’t sure what yet.

“Did you just get jealous over what Lance said to Acxa?”

“What? No. I was just, he was being too forward and I, I was…” Keith didn’t have a valid defense and was starting to get flustered. Shiro watched with a growing sense of amusement as he blushed a little, going back over the occurrence in his head. He started backing away. “I have to go see if Pidge or Hunk need my help down in the labs.”

Shiro’s smile got wider, but he didn’t stop Keith from escaping. The base wasn’t the place to be discussing personal matters anyway, he would catch him after he got home tonight. For now he had his own business to work on, making his way through the halls of the Atlas up to the bridge.

The full crew wasn’t aboard, they had duties with the Garrison cadets. Coran was at the helm running some diagnostics, but aside from that Shiro was alone. He booted up his console and accessed the Atlas’ memory storage, pulling up the recordings and records of the Battle of the Last Stand. Like the Paladins, he began searching through the fight’s records for any information that might help ascertain whether their sleeping Altean was a victim or an enemy.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Six months ago_** :

“Nothing’s running, even the radios are down,” Coran was on the floor on his back, tucked under what could be considered the Atlas’ dashboard for lack of a better word. The holographic displays were all down and even the lighting was off. Two members of the bridge crew were prying open the override panel to manually open the doors in case the air filtration was down long enough to require evacuation.

“Any satellite phone functionality?” Shiro asked, on his own knees and up to his elbows in the wiring exposed by another open panel. “Cell phone towers?”

“Most of our satellites were taken out when the Galra arrived,” Iverson answered. “A few cell phone towers are still up, but any access we have to them to actually route communication would need us to be at the base. The Atlas was never outfitted with those kinds of systems.”

“Even if it was, there’s no power coming to the communications grid,” Veronica called from her station. Like everyone else, she was doing her best to reroute some kind of power to her console.

Shiro could feel that the crystal was still functioning even without checking it. The problem wasn’t with their power source, it was with the Atlas. That strange robeast had done something to interrupt the flow, like severing a nerve on a human being to paralyze the body. The stream of power hadn’t been hardwired, whatever had changed the ship had formed a new power grid, and that was now fried.

It was possible that the only way to restore power would be to find a way to revert the Atlas back to its ship form, so its original connections were in contact again. The problem was, Shiro wasn’t really sure how to do that.

“Somebody want to tell me what just happened?” Sam Holt’s voice came from the hallway, a few seconds before he climbed into the precariously tilted bridge now that the doors were open. “None of the hallways lead where they’re supposed to anymore, I got lost twice just trying to get here from the engine room!”

“Your ship turned into a giant robot, wrecked half of New Mexico with laser blasts, then got its gravitationally challenged butt kicked by that meth-powered vampire,” Veronica answered as she climbed out from under her console. “Too bad you don’t have windows in the engine room, it was impressive. All my wiring here is good, just no power flow.”

“How are the kids doing?” Sam asked, hopping right over the chairs in his way to get to the window. “Are they okay? I heard some kind of explosion on my way up here.”

“Voltron deployed its wings,” Shiro answered, giving up on the panel and looking out over the desert. “We’ve been trying to restore power from here to help them out, but no success. Hopefully that thing is finally down now.”

“We need to get the radios up,” Iverson advised. “The Lions are down too, the pilots will probably need medical attention after that fight.”

“The power lines don’t line up anymore,” Sam told them, echoing out loud Shiro’s suspicion as he finally turned away from the window. “The ship isn’t shaped the way it was designed right now, none of the panels are fit together properly. What happened to this thing?”

“The gem Allura put into my prosthetic to make it work,” Shiro lifted his arm to illustrate. “She had it with her in her tiara when she was in Oriande, and when she was in the quintessence field. I think she picked up something in one of those places, something conscious. I felt it interface with the Atlas through the tech in my arm.”

“Sounds like the Lions,” Coran mused, sitting up and rubbing his head where he’d banged it under his console. “They tend to know what to do when we don’t. Apparently so does the Atlas now.”

“Well there’s no way I can power a ship this big the way the Paladins charge their Lions,” Shiro reasoned. “We have to get it back into a form where its wiring connects, the question is just how.”

Nobody had an answer. There was a moment of concerned silence in the bridge, followed by a soft beeping. Shiro looked around for the source, startled when there was a loud hiss and something moved at his feet. He jumped back when a column ejected from the floor, rising up to console height. It had a round hole in the side with several triangular white lights that were the only thing on the ship currently lit.

“That wasn’t there a minute ago,” Sam protested. “I don’t even know what it is, I never built that.”

“Okay, I’m going to say it,” Veronica declared from where she was currently hiding behind Sam. “Your ship is possessed.”

Shiro eyed the new addition, puzzled. It was perfectly familiar to him, albeit slightly different in form. Coran came to stand beside him.

“Is that…?” He trailed off, also uncertain.

“It…almost looks like a bayard port,” Shiro confirmed. Except there was no slot to insert a bayard, instead this had a round, flat metal panel with five oddly spaced lights around the edge. Shiro was used to the odd changes and new discoveries aboard the Castle of Lions and the Lions themselves, but having a normal, Earth-made ship reconfiguring itself right before his eyes was more than a little eerie.

Flashes of light from across the desert called everyone’s attention to the windows. In the distance they could see the Lions had powered up, their thrusters firing as they started taking the prone robeast up to a higher altitude.

“What are they doing?” Sam wondered.

“Wasting strength and power,” Shiro answered, “Which they wouldn’t do if it wasn’t an emergency. Something’s wrong.”

“Our sensors are down so we can’t figure out what,” Coran acknowledged. “But it looks like they’re trying to get it away from the planet’s surface.”

“Self-destruct protocol?” Shiro asked. “Coran, does that sound like something the Galra would use?”

“The Galra would tie their own mothers to the front of their missiles just for the sport of it, I wouldn’t put it past them. And it’s got to be a very powerful blast headed our way if they’re afraid of letting it detonate out in the middle of an uninhabited stretch of desert.”

Shiro watched the Lions rise, out of sync and slow. Too slow. Even at a bare minimum of functional power their thrusters should all be strong enough to rise, and that thing they carried couldn’t weigh enough to drag them down that much. It didn’t take Slav to figure out what was wrong; they were all exhausted and possibly injured, and the Lions couldn’t pull enough power work.

If they couldn’t use their thrusters, they couldn’t get out of the blast zone once they moved it to a higher altitude. And if they couldn’t use their thrusters, they also couldn’t use their particle barriers.

“Shiro?” Coran exclaimed as Shiro turned and sprinted back to his console. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a suicide run!” Shiro answered, jumping the counter to get to the newly presented port. He looked at it, not sure what he was supposed to do, then down at his prosthetic.

_Fingertips_ , he realized, looking at the spacing of the five lights. He put his hand on the mark and pressed, feeling the round panel give as the lights glowed brighter. It took some pushing to spin it, but after a few seconds he felt something release. _Come on…come on! They’re only kids, we can’t leave them up there!_

The panel clicked into its new position. The lights went out, one by one, and the port retracted into the floor. For a moment nothing happened, then everyone in the bridge was thrown to the ground as the entire Atlas began to shift. Without the benefit of being up in the atmosphere it was a rough ride, and Shiro found himself thrown clear over his console. He very nearly took down Veronica before slamming into Lieutenant Dane, who was unfortunate enough to not be looking behind him.

The nauseating movement finally ended, to an eruption of pained groans that faded into gasps as the lights and overlays began flickering back on.

“Get us airborn!” Shiro yelled, pulling Sam up off the floor. “We need to get up there with our shield!”

Light flashed, and not from inside. It was painfully bright, telling them time was up. Shiro moved to the window, watching with wide eyes as the light faded to reveal what looked like five shooting stars.

“Oh no,” he murmured. “We’re too late. Where are they falling? Somebody get a read on where they’re falling!”

“Blue to the lake, Yellow to the desert, Green to the forest, Red to the lava beds,” Coran was already reading off a telemetry map, fingers flying over the console even though he was still on his knees. “Relatively soft landings on water, sand, trees, and ash fields, all at a slope that might help survival odds. Black is…coming straight down.”

Black was little more than a purple streak of light, flying downward at dizzying speed. Either the Lion was completely out of power or Keith was unconscious, but either way Shiro couldn’t just watch him crash into the ground. The size and weight of that ship, coupled with how hard it was going to hit concrete head on, was an absolute death sentence if none of the Lion’s safety measures were active.

“We have to get up there!” He repeated “What’s taking so long?”

“Engines are charging up!” Veronica told him. “It’s not instantaneous for a ship this size!”

_We’re not going to make it,_ Shiro realized. _He’s going to be killed, and so is anyone under him in the city._

It was a hollow, hopeless feeling, watching Black plummet. As it came closer Shiro could see it was out of control, spinning and spiraling like so much dead weight. He found himself gripping the edge of the console, wanting to look away but unable to.

_Please let him be unconscious, please don’t let him see the ground coming. Please, please let it be quick._

A burst of color came from the right. The Atlas was so close and the impact so hard Shiro could hear the screeching of metal even without the aid of the sound system. Red came in upside down under Black with only one thruster visibly functioning, taking the force of the larger Lion’s downward motion and slowing it abruptly.

The Red Lion was one of the smallest and didn’t seem to have much more power to spare, but it fired its thruster with everything it had and forced Black’s trajectory to change. Black’s fall sloped, taking it out over the city and toward the abandoned fields of the Galaxy Garrison, where Red’s power gave out entirely.

Red managed one last twist, dumping Black to let it hit. That it didn’t stop spiraling after that meant it was dead or Lance had passed out, but in either case the result was the same; Red slammed into the far runway, cratering the tarmac.

“All emergency medical personnel to the jet hangars,” Shiro commanded over the intercom. “Five patients incoming, prepare for triage. Pilots to your fighters. Helipad, prep two birds for immediate takeoff.”

Shiro was barely finished talking before he was running off the bridge, Coran, Sam, and Veronica hot on his heels.

“Sam, go with Kinkade to the Yellow Lion, have Colleen go with Leifsdottir to Green,” Shiro ordered as he pounded the elevator button to go down to the hangar repeatedly. “Coran, go with Risavi to Blue. Help the pilots get the Paladins loaded into the MFEs, they’ll get them back here for emergency treatment and then come back to the Lions for you. Keep all communication channels open at all times. Go, go!”

He rushed them out of the elevator when the door opened and grabbed Veronica’s hand, not bothering to waste time explaining as he ran across the hangar. He passed the MFEs, on his way to another elevator at the far side.

“Griffin, with me!” He called on their way past. “I need two EMTs, with us, now!”

The five of them were in the far elevator, up three levels, and stepping out to the helipad within minutes. Two of the military helicopters were being prepped, ready to be raised up to the surface on their lifts as soon as they were manned.

“Griffin, take Veronica to the Red Lion. Take an EMT with you. You,” he pointed to the second EMT. “You’re with me.”

It felt like forever as Shiro jumped into the cockpit of the nearest readied helicopter, quickly fastening his harnesses and pulling on a headset. The crew got the lift up as fast as possible but it still wasn’t fast enough, he was so impatient he very nearly took off before he was clear of the hangar.

Billows of dust and steam were rising in the distance, three columns so big they were visible from the Atlas even with how far away they must be. But the most easily visible were the two flanking the Garrison, just a few miles from where they now sat.

As they finally rose into the air, Shiro could see the MFEs launching from the hangar below. He turned his attention to the Black Lion, putting on as much speed as he could muster to reach the fallen vessel. Black was completely upside down, head tilted back, no signs of any power remaining. Shiro brought the helicopter down on the Lion’s chest, shutting it down and springing out along with the EMT.

“We have to go in the lower entrance,” he said as he skidded to his knees by the round outline of the speeder hatch. “Somehow.”

He tried to pry it open, but with no success. The Lion didn’t even have enough power for its doors to function.

“Guys, I have a problem here,” he said over the radio. “No power to Black’s doors.”

“The Red Lion is open through the jaw port,” Veronica’s voice came over the line. “Looks like the locking mechanism failed when the bigger Lion hit it, we’re heading in now.”

“Unless any other door seals failed, you’re going to have to transfer some power to the other Lions to open them,” Coran advised. “The MFEs are mostly charged, land them somewhere on the Lion itself and give it a few doboshes, they should be able to draw enough through the contact to at least open up.”

“Well that’s some good news, but I don’t have an MFE with me,” Shiro muttered. He took a breath, closing his eyes and resting his good hand on Black’s surface. “Thoughts and prayers, I guess.”

_Come on, Black. I know I’m not your Paladin anymore, but Keith needs you to let us in. I’m asking you for him, not for me. Just work with me for a few minutes so we can help him._

If it wasn’t too late. They still didn’t even know if the pilots had survived that explosion aside from Lance's crazy stunt, let alone the fall.

Shiro felt a vibration begin to run through him, very faint and slow. It felt like it was trying to pull enough power to at least open the doors, but the flow wasn’t really there. Black felt…weak, as if the Lion itself was injured.

A hiss sounded and the hatch started to open, but it only moved halfway before it creaked to a halt. That was all Black could manage, and all Shiro could really ask after today.

“Thank you,” he whispered, moving to the edge and carefully dropping down into the shadows. At the bottom of the shaft was the entrance to the cockpit, but this time the damage left Shiro able to pry it open. The cockpit was lit with purple, but not bright. Black’s last efforts to let them find their way as they searched for his pilot. Shiro took one look inside and his heart leapt up into his throat.

Keith lay against a dark viewscreen, cracked in several places by the impact from his body. The failed restraints hung over him from the pilot’s chair, and anything that hadn’t been fastened down was littering the screen around him. He was bent in a way that Shiro knew he would see in his nightmares for a very long time.

“Keith!” He climbed over the controls to him in a panic with the EMT in tow, wanting to pick him up and carry him right out but knowing he had to be checked first. His flight back to the Atlas wasn’t going to be quite as fast or smooth as the others.

Seconds ticked by like days. The EMT removed Keith’s helmet and checked his pulse, then started quickly checking his fitness to travel.

“He’s breathing. Heart’s a little sluggish, could be some internal injuries. Doesn’t feel like his neck is broken. We need to take him out carefully, but he should be okay to move. Faster we get him back, faster they find out if there’s anything we can’t see.”

Shiro helped maneuver Keith out of the Lion, then onto the stretcher the EMT brought over. They fastened him into the helicopter and started back toward the Atlas, which was now airborne and holding in wait for everyone’s arrival. On their approach Shiro spotted the second helicopter on the landing lift, already being lowered back down into the hangar.

There were gurneys at the ready, and Lance was already being loaded onto one as Shiro climbed out of the cockpit and threw open the helicopter doors to allow access to Keith. He waited impatiently for the younger pilot to be moved over to a gurney then followed it across the hangar to the elevator where Lance’s gurney was currently being loaded.

Veronica was following Lance but she stopped halfway across the hangar. Shiro stepped around her and kept going, following them into the elevator and only glancing back when he was inside. Veronica had both hands over her face, her body trembling with sobs. Griffin stood behind her, visibly shaken. He could only imagine what kind of scene they'd found in the Red Lion's cockpit.

The elevator was necessarily large, used to move cargo, but he stepped into the corner to stay out of the way while the medical personnel started removing any coverings. As the white armor was unclipped and the black under-armor cut away, the extent of the injuries became clearer.

There was a lot of blood. A lot of dark, vicious bruising. There would be broken bones, internal bleeding. Keith had a forming impact bruise that painted the left side of his ribs onto his skin, there was no way everything was intact there. Lance’s breathing was labored, he had a valve mask over his nose and mouth being steadily pumped by a med tech.

The elevator door opened and the gurneys were rushed out. Shiro followed slower, knowing he couldn’t go with them into the infirmary without being in the way.

One jet had returned and Pidge was being offloaded. They were stripping away her armor as well, revealing pale skin painted with black and blue and red. Somehow it was almost worse to see her, so much smaller than the others, limp and lifeless.

The second MFE came in to land and they began to offload Hunk. Risavi was only a minute behind that with Allura.  He was put into a cervical collar as he was rushed out of the Hangar, a tech climbed up on Allura’s to start performing chest compressions as she was taken after. The pilots taxied their jets around and took off again, headed back to pick up those still waiting out at the Lions.

The whole ordeal was strangely quiet, like Shiro’s ears had shut down. The shouted medical jargon, the urgency in the voices of the nurses and med techs, the noise and commotion of people rushing around. It was all white noise as he watched his team disappear through the doors at the far end of the hangar, one by one. Somebody put a hand on his shoulder, but he was too numb to respond. Shiro let himself be guided back to the elevator, up to the bridge and to Coran’s empty seat. He stared at the blinking console next to him until someone pressed a paper cup of coffee into his hands, looking up to find Iverson at his side.

“It doesn’t get any easier, in case you’re wondering,” the older soldier confided. “Watching young people risk their lives, sometimes not coming back…”

“They’re kids,” Shiro said softly, staring down at the cup. “Pidge is sixteen. _Sixteen_. Lance and Hunk are just barely eighteen. Keith only just found his mother, Allura’s been leading for so long but she’s just a young girl.”

“You know, Shirogane, you’re just a kid too,” Iverson answered, pulling over a chair of his own. “The new hair color doesn’t change that. What are you now? Twenty-six? Most soldiers are twice your age before they’ve been through half of what you’ve seen. You’ve done what you could under the circumstances handed to you, and you did better than most people could dream of. You didn’t fail anyone.”

Shiro wished he could feel that way, but he didn’t. Deep down he knew he’d made the only possible choices; he’d been unconscious when rescued and had no say in who had been pulled into it, the Blue Lion never would have launched without Lance in the pilot seat, more pilots never would have been found in time to stop Sendak if those kids hadn’t arrived with him at the Castle of Lions, he’d mentored and led everyone the best that he could.

But it still came back to him. He’d insisted on going to Kerberos, he’d been taken prisoner, he’d escaped, he’d pulled those kids into this, he’d encouraged them all to go through the wormhole, he’d pushed them to learn how to pilot the Lions.

If none of that had happened, they’d probably all be dead right now along with the rest of Earth in the spread of the Galra empire. But at least those deaths wouldn’t rest squarely on Shiro’s shoulders.

He heard Iverson take over, giving orders to land. Small crews were sent out to start releasing prisoners from the nearby work camps, and communications were sent out to all hidden pockets of resistance that the coast was clear. Shiro watched the coffee in his hand get cold, then set it aside to watch the lights on the nearby consoles blink on and off in patterns. Outside it started to get dark, and at that point he watched the stars.

“Commander?”

Shiro had all but forgotten he wasn’t alone. He looked over to find Lieutenant Dane still at his station, disconnecting a call from his earpiece.

“Kogane is out of surgery, he’s asking for you,. They don’t know how long he’ll stay awake before the sedatives kick in, you might want to hurry.”

* * * * * * * * * *

_**Current day**_ :

There was nothing of use in the Atlas logs pertaining to the Altean-powered mech. From what Shiro went over he would probably bet money their unconscious guest was the pilot, but there was still so much they didn’t know about the advanced machine’s inner workings. The thing could be like other robeasts, some kind of conscious creature merged with machinery that would account for the way it moved and fought. The girl plugged into it could still be a victim, even if it looked otherwise on the surface.

Shiro paged through logs until his phone beeped, letting him know he had a meeting coming up with the different team captains regarding the exercise tomorrow. Meetings were his least favorite thing, even ones about something like this, but he managed to sit through it without losing his mind. By the time he walked out of the board room with all the other Garrison officers the rank and file had already left for the evening.

Since Keith would be at his mother’s for dinner, Shiro stopped for takeout on the way home. Krolia always offered to send some leftovers home with her son, but Galra tended to eat Galran cooking, much of which Shiro found unpalatable. Keith absolutely loved it, but Shiro wasn’t sure if it was because the kid just liked that it was his mother's cooking or because he’d inherited the tastes of her people.

Kosmo came to greet him at the door as he let himself into the apartment, so at least he wasn’t completely alone while he ate and watched TV. Afterward he took the wolf out for a stroll around the apartment complex to let him chase leaves, then fell into bed to watch some Halloween movies that were on.

Shiro wasn’t a fan of horror, the suspenseful parts stressed him out and he was always caught on the jump scares. Adam had been the horror movie buff, Halloween was his holiday. Decorations went up on September 30th, and if they were a day after he felt like he was late. Haunted houses, Halloween parties, and horror movie marathons were pretty much non-stop all the way through October.

A monster jumped out on screen and Shiro turned the volume down, hugging his pillow and resting his chin on top of it. He thought about Halloween night, about how he always gave in to wearing some couple’s costume or another that he always swore was stupid even though he kind of enjoyed it. He liked standing off to the side with the candy bowl while Adam made a big deal of practically every child’s costume, taking pictures and asking them about the characters.

They always had to give out full size candy bars. Nothing less would be satisfactory.

Shiro pressed his face into the pillow, closing his eyes. When was their last Halloween? Six years ago now, he thought. Two months out to Kerberos and about ten until he’d escaped the Galra. Another year fighting the war. Three years in the time dilation, then a few months back and six more to this point.

Six years by Earth time, three years for him thanks to the time skip. Not enough years in either case for him to be okay.

Shiro turned off the TV, unable to stand the sound of the music any longer. He held the pillow in place over his face for a little while, refusing to make any noise, and when he was finally able to gain some semblance of control and toss it away it was damp. He rolled out of bed and went into his bathroom, splashing cool water on his face to get rid of any traces of red that might be in his eyes.

When he returned, Kosmo was standing by the edge of his bed. Shiro flopped back down, patting the empty right side where someone important would have been sleeping if the universe hadn’t decided to go to Hell. Kosmo jumped up and settled in, and Shiro did his best to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Lance finished lacing his boots and sat back on the bench, looking at the items hanging in the locker he’d been assigned. One locker in a long row of lockers, one Airman amongst thousands of soldiers on base. Nothing particularly special, nothing particularly great.

He had always known he wasn’t fit to be a Paladin, always had that deep-down feeling he didn’t belong. Shiro’s words were nice, but reality was a little more brutal. The nice little lie was that he'd stood out from the others somehow, somehow had been worthy to pilot the first Lion found. The much more likely truth was that Blue had probably chosen him because she, like Allura, recognized the good qualities in the others and knew they belonged in the other Lions. Lance had just been what was left, a feeling he grew more and more used to as time wore on.

And Blue would have been right about him. Here he was, six months after their biggest fight, no longer a Paladin. The others had all pulled through and moved on, and he was left behind.

The weak link. The one without a “thing.”

The worst pilot ever, as Keith had so eloquently put it on that day he’d first flown Blue. The very much lacking “paragon of leadership” Pidge had sarcastically called him at the Galra supply station. Most useful when he just stayed out of the important things, something Shiro’s clone had realized even if Shiro hadn’t yet.

He closed his eyes and relaxed, preparing for the day. He would have to smile, crack jokes, pretend everything was fine. It was a familiar routine by now, pretty much second nature, but it was still sometimes hard to keep it up all day.

He heard footsteps and opened his eyes, groaning internally. It was almost seven in the godforsaken morning, were a few minutes to himself really that hard to get? The other soldiers shouldn’t even be showing up for another hour to prep for the war games today.

He stood up and pulled his jacket out of the locker, reaching into the pocket as Keith came around the corner. Lance stopped what he was doing and shoved the jacket back in, giving him a sideways look.

“You’re here early. And here at all,” he noted. Keith wasn’t in his armor yet and had no reason to be here in this locker room, across the base from where the Paladins had their own. “Did you ride in with Shiro today?”

“No, I brought my bike.”

Keith came down the row and stopped to lean against the locker next to Lance’s with one arm, his other hand on his hip. It was such a cocky little power pose, but Lance didn’t think he was doing it on purpose. He just really was a confident little shit a lot of the time.

“I was going to ask you yesterday how your hangover went on Sunday, but Griffin was there. And you were a little bit busy.”

“Oh, right. If I remember correctly, I was busy being yelled at by you for my wandering eyes,” Lance recalled.

His mood was lifted somewhat by Keith’s unexpected appearance. It was kind of nice to have someone go out of their way to come see him before their shifts started, a nice perk until he was out there scrubbing down the Atlas’ helipads today. Keith wrinkled his nose slightly at the jab.

“Yeah, well, there were plenty of Galra there for you to flirt with, you picked the wrong one.”

Was Keith flirting again? He was still new with this and it was still hard to tell. Lance decided to play along at any rate, nodding sagely.

“Kolivan,” he agreed. “Very rugged, very manly. Too bad he’s dating your mom.” Keith’s eyebrows rose, and Lance wondered if that was something he wasn’t supposed to have figured out. Or maybe he was just touchy about anyone saying anything about his mom, given their circumstances. But he didn't look angry, just a little perplexed and kind of amused.

“You do know Kolivan is my mom’s uncle, right?”

“What?  No way,” Lance protested, eyes wide with surprise. Then again, family relation would be another logical reason why a leader and second in command always seemed to be so close. Lance started laughing. “Dude, you got the snot kicked out of you to join the Blade by your own great-uncle?”

He raised both hands, reaching around Keith’s neck to pull his hair back from his face. He held it there, grinning mischievously.

“You know, if you wear a braid like him I can even see the resemblance.”

Lance waited for Keith to get annoyed, but he didn’t. He didn’t pull away or smack Lance’s hands. Instead he gave that cocky little smile that sometimes liked to make an appearance.

“So you think I’m rugged and manly?”

There was that tone again, that playful, flirty tone from the movie theater. That tone that made it very obvious he was flirting even to an idiot like him, the tone that had turned Lance into a minor disaster. He didn’t fair too much better this time either, immediately letting go of Keith to pretend he was checking his locker for something.

“Pfft, no,” he protested, maybe a little too loudly. “You’re more pretty. I mean, I don’t think you’re _pretty_ , not that I’d know if you were since it’s not like I look that much. But if I did look a lot, which I don't, I'd say definitely not rugged. You’re more, uh, you know.”

“Cool and grizzled,” Keith supplied.

Ouch. Verbal head shot.

“Okay, I walked right into that one,” Lance allowed. “You’re more on your game early in the morning, I’ll remember that. So are you really here to see how my hangover was, or are you just trying to get me to compliment your looks so you can shoot your shot?”

Keith either didn’t notice the actual question, or the phrase went over his head. He shrugged slightly, glancing into Lance’s open locker.

“You ran out pretty fast, can’t have helped your head,” he said conversationally. Then he looked at Lance. “Nothing happened, you know.”

Lance felt like the locker room was suddenly very warm. His memory of the night was very fuzzy, he remembered being pretty hands on both in the bar and in Keith’s room after, but not much else.

“Why would I think anything happened?” He asked defensively. Keith laughed, but it was soft and pleasant and not the mocking kind of laughter Lance had grown to expect from a lot of people.

“Because you woke up undressed in my bed?” Keith asked. “The bed you basically pulled us into, after grabbing my ass and disguising it as a hug.”

“Keith, I am a very affectionate person,” Lance tried to deflect. He pulled his jacket out of the locker and turned away slightly, emptying its pockets into those of his uniform. “It’s right in the nickname, Loverboy Lance. Sometimes I get carried away with the hugs, it’s completely normal.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.” Keith was still smiling, that frustrating smile that had so recently started giving Lance such a light, fluttery feeling. “If you didn’t leave so early I would’ve made coffee. Do you feel like going to get some tonight since you missed out?”

Lance froze in returning his jacket to the locker. He looked at Keith, then around the locker room as if there might be someone else he was talking to, then back at Keith. He took in the way he was leaning, one arm up over his head and the other still on his hip, and the smile.

“Wait, are you asking me out right now? Like, on a date?” He regretted it as soon as he said it, it sounded so presumptuous. They’d gone to see one movie and then gotten kidnapped to a place where Keith had gotten to see him drink way too much out of pride. Not his finest moment. Keith’s eyebrows rose again, but this time in the same vein of puzzlement he’d shown with Lance’s Voltron chant so long ago.

“Yes?”

Oh. Well then.

“Okay, just as long as we’re clear,” Lance answered, taking what was supposed to be a steadying breath and immediately panicking on the inside.

_Okay, breathe. Breathe. There is nothing weird about this. This is Keith. You know him, you trust him. An actual date is where things are supposed to go. You held the guy’s hand in a dark movie theater and drunkenly manhandled him in his own bedroom, you really should’ve expected this to happen at some point._

“Coffee sounds good.” Crap, did his voice crack when he said that? “Just not the place near Hunk’s house. I went there the other day and the guy spelled my name L-A-N-T-S, then gave me the finger when I said it was wrong.”

“I meant real coffee, in actual ceramic cups,” Keith made a face. “There’s a place called La Lune that Shiro and I go to, I think you’ll like it.”

“Okay,” Lance was fine with that, it sounded nice. He finally closed the locker and turned to face Keith fully, if the other pilot was being brave right now then Lance could be too. “Maybe we can get comfortable and really talk about some things finally. Like that stunt you pulled nearly crashing that striker with you in it.”

“On second thought, I might be busy tonight…”

“Not funny, man,” Lance headed him off. “A lot of things happened over the last few years, and we were both pretty messed up through most of it. I just want to hear the reasons for some of it straight from your mouth.”

“Okay.” Keith’s expression softened a bit, becoming serious. He reached over to lightly rub Lance’s arm, in a gesture that was strangely comforting. “I’m not really a big fan of talking, but if you really want to then I’ll manage.”

“ _Thank_ you.”

So, they had a date. No movie or a distraction, just the two of them one-on-one. Though, knowing them it would still devolve into petty fighting at points, that was just how they functioned. Lance was admittedly surprised this happened so fast, it had taken him years to realize he was being flirted with while Keith was pouncing on the barest of signs after only a weekend.

“You’re going to be late if you don’t get over to the hangars and change,” Lance warned. Keith’s hand had stopped moving but it was still on his arm and the contact was nice, but they both belonged to the military at the moment. “And I need to get up to the Atlas. Good luck on those war games today.”

“Thanks. Try not to get your punishment extended,” Keith advised. “Meet up at my office at six?”

Lance nodded and spun the lock on his locker. He stepped around him and felt the hand on his arm fall away, but instead of completely releasing him it caught him around the middle. Keith pulled him back and pressed him against the row of lockers, resting a hand on the back of his neck, and caught him completely off guard with a kiss.

Lance thought he might have a heart failure, he was in no way prepared for this or certain of how to react. It wasn’t that it was bad—overall it felt very, very good—but it was a first and it was loaded with uncertainty.

And it was definitely happening. The options were to either freak out or go with it, and he was leaning heavily toward “go with it.” Lance closed his eyes and leaned into the kiss, resting a hand on the back of Keith’s neck and feeling that annoyingly long hair curl through his fingers. At his thumb Lance could feel Keith's heart pounding, almost as hard as his own.

Keith was not the kind of kisser Lance would have pegged him for, either. It was soft and slow, a lot more on the romantic side than he expected, and even though he was arguably pinned against the lockers the hands at his neck and waist were light.

When Keith pulled back to breathe his cheeks were flushed and he had a panicked look in his eye, like he’d just acted against his own better judgement and was waiting for the backlash. But his voice was calm when he spoke, if quiet.

“ _That_ was my shot.”

Lance stared at him, trying to process the last fifteen seconds. When he realized what Keith had said his brain finally kicked back into gear and he laughed.

“Three pointer,” he assured him, letting his head drop forward to rest against Keith’s shoulder. They were both still holding each other close, Keith felt warm and smelled really nice. “Four stars, would recommend.”

“Only four?”

Lance felt Keith starting to move away and put both arms around his neck, to keep him close for a few more moments. He could feel the tension in him, which was kind of a relief. At least they were both huge messes over this and he wasn’t alone in being anxious.

“You can’t be number one at everything, buddy,” Lance quipped. “Take the hit on this one.”

He really didn’t want to let go. It was a really good feeling, holding someone like this. Okay, holding Keith like this. Lance hugged people all the time, he had a big family, but this was different. This was comforting and nerve-wracking and soothing and terrifying all at once. When he did finally let Keith go it was with some reluctance.

“You really do have to go suit up,” he warned. “And I need to get out to the Atlas.”

“Yeah, they’ll be wondering where I am soon,” Keith agreed. He was wearing that little smile, that soft one that came out sometimes when he thought no one would notice. God, he was so freaking adorable when he smiled like that. “So I’ll see you at six.”

Keith’s hands finally slipped away and he headed for the door. Lance sighed and followed, reaching into his pocket to pull something out.

“Keith! Wait. Here, these are yours.” He offered the pair of fingerless gloves he’d been carrying around for months, always intending to return them but not wanting to make things weird.

“You saved my gloves?” Keith took them, surprised. “I thought I lost them. They weren’t in my room when I grabbed my clothes.”

“Yeah, because they were in mine,” Lance admitted, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I might have stolen them in revenge when you left for the Blade.”

Keith smiled and tugged the gloves on, flexing his fingers to get a feel for them again. He looked so pleased over something so little, and Lance felt a small flutter in his chest from knowing he was the one that made him happy.

“Thank you. These were my dad’s, they’re really important to me.”

Lance edged out of the locker room, knowing that if he didn’t go now he would procrastinate even longer.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he said, turning to jog away. “Because I’m also the one who put that sand in your armor while you were gone.”

“Wait, what?” Lance could practically hear the shifting of gears in Keith’s brain. “Hold on! Lance! Get back here!”

Lance broke into a sprint, and didn’t stop until he was safely on the Atlas.

* * *

The helipads were the day’s punishment on purpose, Lance knew. The Atlas’ military helicopters launched through ports that opened above, after being raised on lifting launch pads that took them in and out of the ship. There was no view of outside and the only way to hear radio chatter was from the control room or through a headset. Lance and James had no access to what their teammates were currently doing.

All in all it was an easy enough job, at least. Scrubbing down the floors of the helipads to try and remove stains from machinery maintenance.

Lance didn’t even notice he was working. He was completely on autopilot, replaying the morning’s kiss from all possible angles. His self-defeatist side was trying to find some way to convince him he’d read the whole incident wrong, but fortunately Keith had made his intentions pretty clear for once.

“You all right?”

Lance looked up from the oil stain he was scrubbing at with a push broom to find James looking at him.

“Fine. Why?”

“You’re quiet for once,” James noted, going back to scrubbing. “And I know the last time you were in here it was on a stretcher.”

Lance looked out over the hangar, at the crew going about their business with a calmness bordering on boredom. A far cry from the chaos that had probably gone on in here six months ago.

“I don’t remember it, everything after the explosion is a blank,” Lance said honestly. He hesitated for a second before continuing. “Veronica told me you helped the EMT get me out of red’s cockpit when she froze up, though. Thanks for that. I think she still feels bad.”

“It was my job,” James said with a shrug. “She would’ve been fine if she was helping someone else, she just wasn’t ready to see you like that.”

“How bad was it?”

“Do you honestly want to know?”

There was a warning in James’ voice that said to think very carefully about his answer. Lance had never asked Veronica details because he didn’t want to make her think about it, but also because he didn’t really want to know. He had scars, plenty of them, but he didn’t know any of their stories or what had caused them, and he’d felt more comfortable leaving it that way. But it had been half a year, he liked to think he was past the bulk of the emotional trauma.

“Yes,” he decided. James shrugged again and stopped, leaning on the handle of his broom.

“You looked awake when we came in. Your harness failed like the others, it threw you into your viewscreen, and since you didn’t have a chance to secure the cockpit before the fighting started you got pinned to it by some long screwdriver thing. It went through your side where you didn’t have armor, but by the time we got to you you’d already taken off your helmet and pulled it out. You were sitting on the control console, just bleeding all over the place and staring straight ahead at nothing with this bloody tool in your hands. There was blood running down your face from a gash up in your hairline, and I think from your ears. Veronica started screaming when she saw you but you didn’t even blink, and you didn’t answer when I talked to you. It was kind of like you’d passed out with your eyes open or something, you went right out when we moved you onto the stretcher.”

Lance didn’t remember being awake. But then again, he didn’t remember saving Keith’s butt during their fall like everyone swore he had either. He remembered the painful hell of getting a ticking time bomb into space, a huge explosion, and then waking up in the ICU two days later.

The hangar doors opened and they both quickly went back to scrubbing as four armed soldiers strolled in accompanied by Shiro. Two others came out of the control room and started prepping one of the helicopters.

“Griffin! McClain!” It’s your lucky day, clean up is cancelled,” Shiro called. “Front and center.”

Lance was more than happy to ditch his broom. He joined James and Shiro as the soldiers prepared to board the helicopter.

“We just got a call-in from Acxa, she and Kolivan picked up a signal mixed in with all the simulation noise. We know there are still small handfuls of Galra all over the planet, they think this is one of them laying out a trap under cover of the war games.

“What kind of trap?” James asked.

“Most likely land mines intended to cause civilian casualties when reconstruction in the area starts,” Shiro answered. “The Atlas is the only Garrison presence currently within a hundred miles. The area is urban ruins right now anyway, so I’m sending a team to investigate on foot. You two are the only pilots we have on the ship, suit up and make it quick.”

Lance and James scrambled to obey. They were changed and climbing into the cockpit within minutes, both chomping at the bit to get out and do something.

“Sure you can handle being just the co-pilot?” James asked when the lift started taking them up.

“If it means getting out of scrubbing the Atlas, I’ll put on a skirt and be the stewardess,” Lance snorted. “Don’t worry, I’m surprisingly reliable if you just trust me to do what I’m supposed to do.”

James actually grinned. He wasn’t terrible when Keith wasn’t around, Lance didn’t expect they would have any problems on a routine little scout-and-disarm run. The skies were clear as they took off and visibility was excellent, and whoever had planted whatever was giving off the suspicious signal had likely dropped it and run.

Lance searched the sky as they flew even though he knew none of the craft engaged in today’s exercise were nearby. The weather was cool and the trees down below were painted in rainbows of red and gold, and at one point they flew over a group of people riding a trail on horseback.

“Coming up on coordinates,” James announced as they approached an uninhabited stretch of city ruin. “Checking for a clear landing site. Whoa!”

The instruments on the dash went wild, and Lance heard the radios cut out.

“Taking her back out,” James announced. “Call it in.”

“IGF Atlas, this is Scout-201,” Lance radioed back once James had them held at a point above the interference. “We’re at the drop zone, but signals are jammed when we get close. No visuals on any hostiles, everything seems quiet. Please advise.”

“Anywhere outside of the jam where you can land?” Shiro’s voice came over their headsets.

“Negative,” James answered, scanning the area. “Terrain is a mess, the only remotely sound structures with enough landing space are in the perimeter of the communications blackout.”

“All right. Proceed to drop zone,” Shiro decided. “With _caution_. Leave the scout unit, then take the bird out of the jam area. Sergeant Filmore, signal with a flare when you’re ready for extraction.”

“Copy that,” a soldier behind Lance barked.

James took the helicopter back down, bringing it to rest on the faded painted H on a crumbling hospital’s roof. Lance helped the soldiers unload their disarming equipment and returned to the cockpit, watching them disappear into the stairwell.

“All right, fearless leader, take us back up,” he told James as he re-fastened his harness.

“Let me know if you see anywhere safe to land that has a pizza shop, we’ll be waiting for a while.”

They kept low as they pulled away, scanning the area for any signs of what the scout team might be looking for. The helicopter had only gone about half a mile when the shot rang out. What happened next probably took only about twenty seconds, but it all seemed so much longer. A direct hit damaged the rotor, bringing the blades to a halt, and the helicopter crashed down onto a multi-level parking garage below. The unstable structure gave way under the weight, dropping them down through two stories before they rolled to a stop.

Lance hung upside down in his seat, coughing from dirt and plaster dust. He couldn’t see from debris in his eyes, so he reached over and slapped at the other pilot.

“Still alive?” He croaked.

“And pissed,” James groaned.

They pulled out their knives and cut themselves out of their harnesses, stumbling away from the creaking wreck. Lance got his eyes cleared and looked over at James, who was white with plaster and had his hair sticking out at odd angles. He also had a split lip and a cut on his face, and Lance doubted he personally looked any better.

“So much for extraction,” he muttered.

“Yeah, well, we better extract our own asses and get word of hostiles back to the Atlas,” James answered. “No telling what the scout crew might be up against, but they’re still much better armed than we are.”

Lance had to agree.  The scout team was prepared to engage enemy combatants, they were both soldiers but they were still only pilots. Their main job right now was to get out of the communication blackout and get some more boots on the ground here.

They carefully raided the helicopter, each grabbing a rifle an undamaged radio. Lance packed a small backpack with the first aid kit, an empty canteen to fill somewhere just in case, and some flares. They grabbed the helmets they hadn’t been wearing out of the niche they were stowed in and started their hike through the deserted wasteland.

It was an exercise they were both familiar with, except this time it was just the two of them with no fancy Paladin gear and no backup. Lance took up a sniper position and covered James until he got about thirty yards ahead, then James took cover and returned the favor until Lance reached him. They stayed close to walls and turned over cars, making them difficult to target. Lance kept checking the radio, but it was slow going and they weren’t getting very far very fast.

Lance was darting between two cars when he saw the shadow move on the roof of a boarded-up clothing boutique, up and to the right of where James was hidden and out of his view. He abruptly changed course, skirting around a decrepit delivery van and grabbing his shouldered rifle while he was out of sight. He dropped down to his knee by the cab as he came to it, lining up and taking a shot as quickly as he could to try and take their watcher by surprise.

His lasershot hit the cornice since the perpetrator wasn’t in clear view, and he prepared to take another shot as soon as they showed themselves to fire back.

“Wait!” A familiar voice shouted. A hand appeared, waving vigorously, and then Acxa slowly stood up with both hands in the air. “It’s me! Hold your fire!”

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?” Lance exclaimed, lowering the rifle and getting to his feet. He came around the van but stayed close, in case there were enemies nearby. “This is a hot zone right now!”

“No, really?” Acxa asked sarcastically. She stepped off the roof, the thrusters at her ankles slowing her fall as she reached the ground. “What do you think I’m doing here? Same thing as you, I came in to meet up with whatever team Shiro sent in and see what they found. It’s kind of smart to have a Galra soldier with you if you find Galra weaponry.”

“Well then you want to keep going south,” Lance gestured back over his shoulder as James came over to join them. “The scout team went that way. And be careful, somebody blew our helicopter out of the sky. We’re on our way to somewhere our radios will work to call in.”

“Did you run into any Galra on your way here?” James asked. “We haven’t seen anything since our ride went down, which is kind of weird. No gunfire, no explosions, nothing. It’s like nobody’s even here.”

“No, nothing. And you’re right, it is strange.” Acxa held up a tracking monitor she had in her hand, the radar screen showing a blinking blip. “I thought I’d run into resistance the closer I got to the signal, but it’s right on the other side of that block and I still haven’t seen anything.”

“How is that working?” Lance asked, taking the tracker. “None of our stuff works here.”

“It’s modified against military jamming frequencies,” Acxa answered. “Narti did it, but she never had a chance to show me how. I was never able to replicate it for your army.”

“That signal’s really close,” James said, looking forward to the intersection. “We should check it out.”

“Yeah, that’s a really terrible idea,” Lance disagreed. “We’re two soldiers with no real firepower, and Acxa. Who, yeah, is a really scary lady and kicked my ass once, but she’s not exactly a unit’s worth of backup. We should keep going and radio in.”

“You tend to make a lot of decisions for someone who’s never actually been the leader of a team,” Acxa noted.

“This isn’t a team effort, we’re not currently the team,” Lance answered, gesturing between himself and James. “Sergeant Filmore and his group are the team, we’re two pilots who aren’t supposed to be here and this feels bad.”

“Oh. I thought he outranked you,” Acxa answered airily.

“I do,” James broke in. “And I happen to be McClain’s superior even if we’re not technically the full unit sent in. And I said we should check it out.”

“Great,” Lance muttered, shouldering his rifle. “Sure. All right. Let’s go wander to our possible terrible death, then.”

He didn’t like this situation at all. Somebody had shot down their helicopter, but then had never bothered to come after them personally. And everything was so quiet that if anyone had attacked Sergeant Filmore’s unit they would have heard the gunfire. Nobody was here, so maybe what was giving off the signal wasn’t some land mines that were laid out for civilian contractors. Maybe they were remotely detonated bombs laid out for stupid soldiers like them to be lured into.

James was thinking like an Earthbound military officer, that didn’t go well against advanced alien opponents who had thousands of different tactics for thousands of different worlds. And Acxa was a former Galran general, she knew how to keep herself alive and she was armed to do it. Lance and James were probably more likely to end up being cannon fodder than anything else.

Keith would have tried to lead them into this without thinking too, but the difference was that _Keith_ would have listened to his concerns first.

_Okay Lance, just try not to die. You have a date tonight._

Acxa took point, which was fine with Lance since she was better armored. James shouldered his rifle and brandished his pistol, which Lance knew was Idiot for “I’m going to go get closer than I should.” Lance kept back. When they inevitably had to run, they’d need cover fire.

The small group turned at the intersection and made their way quickly to the next, where Acxa flattened herself against the wall at the corner to peek around. Lance held, behind a busted up car, until she motioned for them to approach. What he saw when he reached her was not what he was expecting.

“Is that a Galra ship?” James asked. “I don’t recognize the model.”

“It’s a slave shuttle,” Acxa answered. “Galra pirates use them to kidnap slaves for wealthy customers. They’re fast, they're stealthy, and they’re small. They get in and out with a handful of victims then disappear under cover of regular space traffic.”

“So is it new here, or has it been under cover since the occupation?” Lance asked. “Kind of risky for it to come here, with the Lions on hand.”

“Earth is a major player in the war now, and humans are a mostly unknown quantity to the rest of the universe,” Acxa replied. “My guess? Some faction of the Galra is paying pirates to bring them some of the new enemy to study.”

“Then we can’t let that ship take off,” James decided. “We need to check it for any captives, then wreck it.”

“Fine.” Lance hated to say it, but now that they knew what was here James was right. If anyone was on that ship they needed to be released and the thing needed to be permanently grounded. He just wished they had more help to do it. “How do we want to do this?”

“I’ll go in with Acxa,” James said. Of-freaking-course. “You watch the area, be ready to cover any captives escaping as they come out.”

“And how do I know if you’re in trouble?” Lance asked, tapping his jammed radio.

“Just listen for yelling and gunshots.”

They all approached the vessel with caution, and Lance took up position in the doorway of an abandoned toy store. The shuttle was about the size of a small bus, little more than a cargo hold and a cockpit, and blended in with other dusty vehicles from above. Acxa and James approached it from the rear, fiddling with the operation panel and slipping inside when the door opened.

Lance was left outside alone. He stayed in position, silent and unmoving, slowly becoming unnerved as he waited. This area was too quiet, Galra wouldn’t leave an active vessel completely unattended. Especially not in enemy territory where it might have to take off quickly. He was just about ready to jump out of his skin when Acxa finally reappeared, motioning for him to join them.

He didn’t like leaving no one to guard their exit, but something weird was definitely going on. He shouldered his rifle and sprinted to the shuttle entrance, ducking inside.

It was designed for small grabs, with narrow glass cells against the walls and a canvas net at the ceiling to hold supplies out of the way. Maybe ten to fifteen people could be crammed in here, but the short supply of storage meant it wasn’t made for long trips. This thing was meant to escape a planet quickly and then dock with a bigger ship.

The hold was dark and empty. No captives and no crew. So why was the ship active?

“Where’s Griffin?” Lance asked, pulling off his helmet to see better in the shadows.

“Where does a pilot always go first?” Acxa asked, nodding to the cockpit.

The narrow door was open, letting a sliver of light into the hold. Lance went to go see what Griffin had found, curious as to how this thing compared to an MFE. If it was flyable, they could take it back to the Atlas.

He saw James as soon as he leaned into the cockpit, but it wasn’t at the controls. He was slumped over in the copilot seat, the glow of Galran wrist restraints just barely visible from the angle of Lance’s vision.

Lance processed the image quickly and dropped down just as the butt of Acxa’s gun flew by, barely missing the back of his head. He rolled over onto his back and blocked a secondary blow with his rifle, lashing out with a foot to her knee. When she jumped back he brought the gun up and fired off a handful of shots, bringing down the empty cargo net from above.

He used the distraction to lurch to his feet, darting out of the shuttle and out of Acxa’s easy reach. He threw himself behind a car and fired off shots at the shuttle, trying to keep her pinned inside.

Lance was having trouble wrapping his head around what was happening. He’d trusted Acxa, Keith and Kolivan and Krolia had trusted her. He didn’t want to shoot her but might have to if he wanted to stay alive. It was chaos and confusion, and there was no one else to give orders.

Acxa disappeared back into the shuttle, but Lance held his position, checking his radio again. Still dead. When she returned she didn’t step out of the shuttle herself, instead she threw James out at her feet. He shifted, starting to regain consciousness.

“Pull the trigger again and I blow his skull into tiny pieces,” Acxa warned. “This is nothing personal, so don’t make it harder than it has to be.”

“You just tried to bash in my skull, that feels really, really personal!” Lance called back. “What the hell is going on, Acxa?”

“Pretty simple to figure out. He’s a stain on the ground if you don’t disarm and approach with your hands up. The rest is on a need-to-know basis.”

“Well I kind of need to know!” Lance shot back.

In response, Acxa’s blaster powered up. She took a shot at James’ leg, which definitely woke him up with a yell and a stream of curses.

“Next shot shatters his knee,” Acxa called. “Third is your last chance and he dies.”

Lance dropped down behind the car, frantically looking around for some way to escape. There was nothing nearby he could use to save James and nothing to stop Acxa. No radio, no Lion, no bayard, no armor. And a former Galra general who now knew pretty much all of his strategies.

He heard Acxa’s gun charging up and a second shot. James screamed out in pain, and the gun charged up for the third and final shot. Lance knew the smart thing to do would be to just take off now and try to get out of here, get somewhere he could call in and make Shiro aware of the situation.

But he'd never been able to leave someone behind, and that wasn't about to start now.

“Wait!” Lance called, throwing an arm up over the car in surrender. “I’m coming out!”

“Step around the car, disarm where I can see you, and come forward.”

Lance complied. He came around the car and dropped his rifle, tossing his pistol and knife down with it. He pulled the backpack off, dropping it as well. Raising his arms, he walked forward until he was almost next to James.

“Stop,” Acxa ordered. She tossed a second set of cuffs at his feet. “On your knees. Cuff your hands behind your back.”

Lance did as he was told, his stomach sinking as the restraints clicked closed on his wrist. James was curled up around his leg, muttering a string of curses as blood smeared across the ground from his two blaster wounds. Acxa finally came out, still aiming her gun at the other pilot. She pulled James up to his feet, keeping the gun on him while speaking to Lance.

“Inside. Step into the far cell on the left.”

Lance got carefully to his feet and walked forward, searching for any saving grace and finding none. He stepped into the shuttle’s dark cargo bay and into the specified cell.

“There. Now let Griffin go.”

“Sorry.” Acxa pushed the glass door closed and it locked with a click, her voice becoming distorted as it reached his ears through the air holes at the top. “I already know Paladins care more about other people than themselves, I need him to keep you in line.”

She dumped James into the next cell over and locked it, and closed up the back of the shuttle after tossing his weapons out. Then she disappeared into the cockpit, closing the door behind her.

“Well, that was dumb,” James croaked when they were alone.

“Which part?” Lance asked angrily. “You ordering a mission that wasn’t ours and that we weren’t supplied for, or me surrendering to keep your stupid self alive?”

“Both,” James answered. Lance felt the shuttle starting to rise. “Do we have any idea why she’d want us? Or rather, you?”

“Bargaining chips,” Lance guessed. “She’s always clawed her way to the top, I guess she hasn’t stopped. If she can turn over one of the people who helped overthrow a third of the Galra empire its her ticket back into one of the factions.”

“Wonderful.”

“Yeah. Either a short lifetime in the gladiator arena or an even shorter one leading to public execution. Peachy.”

Lance tried to gauge what was happening, but it was impossible from feel alone. There were no windows and not much sound made it in here. He leaned against the wall, trying to figure out how he was going to keep them both alive, then heard a crackling from his radio. The jamming signal had been turned off.

Acxa had removed James’ radio, so Lance was forced to perform some painful twisting to hit the button with his chin.

“Scout-201 to IGF Atlas, pilots down and aboard Galra shuttle. No eyes on scout unit, weapons lost, signal was a trap. Repeat, signal was a—“

The shuttle lurched, throwing him to the floor. He felt a familiar tingle run through his body, and the weight of the situation really began to settle.

“We just went through a wormhole,” he whispered, his radio going dead as all signal was lost. “Oh, this is so not good.”


	12. Chapter 12

Keith was more on top of his game than he had been in a very long time. He and Black were so in sync they soared with only the barest touch of the controls, moving as if things like gravity and air resistance didn’t exist. He flew circles around the drones and Blade strikers in his quadrant, as well as the other Lions when he happened to cross paths with them.

Figuratively and literally. Pidge finally fired a warning shot at him after he took a sharp dive to take out a simulated striker she had her eye on, sending the much smaller Green spinning in his wake.

“Keith!” He heard her yell over the comm. “That’s the third time you did that, knock it off! You’re showboating like you’re still in Red!”

“Sorry,” Keith answered, knowing he didn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “You’re reacting too slow, I was helping.”

“You’re acting like a hyperactive five-year-old.”

“Pidge is right,” Shiro came over the comm. “I have you all over the map, Keith. You’re not even close to the quadrant you should be in right now.”

“We got everything in my quadrant,” Keith complained, barrel-rolling around Green in a spiral. Pidge tried to close Green’s teeth around Black’s tail, but missed. “I thought this was supposed to get harder as the day went on.”

“It is,” Pidge grumbled.” You’re getting worse every minute.”

Keith flipped Black upside down and came up under Pidge, kicking the bottom of Green’s jaw with a back foot and zooming ahead when the other Paladin let out a scream of annoyance. When she started giving chase he edged up his accelerator, taking a short burst completely out of her quadrant before dropping back to normal speed.

“It’s like being back in the Garrison simulators,” Hunk sighed. “Keith, my dude. Lay off the Pixie Stix.”

Allura’s voice rang out next, a startled shriek as metal paws came down on Blue’s head and used the other Lion as a springboard before their owner zipped off again. “Be careful with Blue’s paint, you miscreant!”

“Keith!” Shiro exclaimed. “Quit showing off! What are you even doing?”

“Oh yeah, just like flight class,” Hunk snorted.

“It’s just a really nice day and I have the ultimate flying machine,” Keith answered. “Why not open it up and let him fly?”

Keith whipped past a cliff face and came around a mesa, the Yellow Lion coming up in his sights. He aimed to clip his paws lightly as he passed from below but Hunk was now on the alert and saw him coming. Yellow lifted slightly as he zoomed past, and his jaws clamped shut around Black’s tail with far more success than Green had managed.

Black slowed down dramatically, throwing Keith forward against the new restraints that had been installed since their fall. Ten thousand years had not been kind to the previous belts, but the new ones held him just fine.

“Sit boy,” Hunk teased. “Okay, I got him.”

Keith smirked and punched his accelerator. Black took off, dragging the smaller Yellow helplessly behind.

“Oh, oh, I don’t got him!” Hunk exclaimed. “Mayday, mayday! I’m being catnapped!”

“Pidge!” Allura yelled.

“On my way!”

“Guys?” Shiro called, completely ignored over the din. “Guys, come on! Focus!”

Keith dove, bringing Black in low to the ground and swerving wildly around terrain features, trying to shake Yellow from his hold. But Hunk’s Lion was the physically strongest and there was no way he was letting go until he wanted to. Keith suddenly turned straight up, dragging him several miles upward, then plummeted again to try to make Hunk sick.

As he dove a streak of blue came from the west. Keith felt his speed start to wane a little as the Blue Lion latched onto Yellow’s tail in turn, just long enough for Green to arrive and grab hers.

“Seriously?” Keith laughed. “You’re all ganging up on me?”

“You brought this on yourself!” Pidge accused.

Black slowed down more as they all fired their thrusters. Keith pulled up his visuals so he could see all their faces, grinning wickedly.

“Just so we’re all clear, _you_ brought this on _your_ selves _._ ”

He threw Black up into full power, turning back upward. Keith poured everything he had into Black, deploying his wings and taking them all to top speed. He started to roll as he went, pulling everyone into a dizzying, high speed spin. On his screen he could see the others start screaming as they were dragged along for the ride.

Their expressions were hilarious, and he couldn’t help laughing as he steered them out of Earth’s atmosphere, past the orbit of Jupiter then Uranus. With his wings in action they reached the Kuiper Belt faster than they’d once reached Kerberos in Blue, and he plunged into the thick of it.

At normal speed, Kuiper objects were so far apart it took real effort to hit one, but Keith pulled the other Lions along so fast it was like dodging asteroids in a video game. He twisted and rolled, whipping the others around rocky asteroids and into small floating objects. It was mostly ice and small rocks out here, nothing that would damage a Lion or seriously threaten anyone’s safety, but the shrieks of terror were wonderful.

Green finally lost her hold. Hunk gave up and released Yellow’s, dropping Blue’s weight as well in the process. Keith didn’t even slow down, turning back toward Earth and leaving them behind.

He felt happy. _Really_ happy, more than he had in as long as he could remember. For weeks he had been looking forward to putting Black into action against a simulated planet-wide war, but now he couldn’t wait for the day to be over. He wanted to land, get out of his armor. He wanted it to be after six o’clock, he wanted to be sitting in a quiet booth in La Lune.

Shiro’s image flashed up on his viewscreen, revealing he was monitoring from his office rather than the bridge. He stood next to Krolia, who was coordinating the Blade side of the exercise, his arms crossed and looking disappointed.

“Are you done?” Shiro asked.

“They’ll be back in five minutes,” Keith waved him off. “It’s been hours, they could use a break anyway.”

“What is wrong with you today?” Shiro asked. “Hunk’s right, you haven’t been this bad since the Garrison.”

“He got a little snuggle from his sweetheart this morning,” Krolia supplied, smirking at her tablet. “He’s a little over-stimulated.”

“MOM!” Keith exclaimed, feeling his face grow hot. “You’re on the intercom, watch what you say! God, I’m never telling you anything again!”

“Sorry,” Krolia answered in the exact same tone Keith had used with Pidge.

“Oh! Did you meet that barista?” Hunk asked.

“I can’t hear you, there’s a solar flare,” Keith lied, cutting the other Paladins off from his feed. “Shut up, Shiro.”

Shiro hadn’t actually said anything, he was still clearly adding two and two, but in very short order he’d get to four and Keith didn’t need the commentary. The frown on Shiro’s face became a wide-eyed stare, then faded into a positively evil grin as he deduced what was going on. Keith made sure his mother wasn’t looking, then flipped his adoptive brother both middle fingers.

Complete professionals.

“Keith, three hundred miles west of you, just above the upper atmosphere,” Krolia suddenly frowned. “There’s a ship signature that’s not part of the exercise, outside of official launch areas.”

“Got it on my map,” Keith confirmed as she sent him the coordinates, changing course. He pulled up from reentry, turning west. “Got an ID on it?”

“It’s registered as an Olkari supply ship, but the radio signals its sending out are on coded Galran military frequencies. It looks like a spy ship.”

“Then it’s going down,” Keith promised.

He came up on the ship in question quickly, a small vessel of a type he thought he’d seen before while on Blade missions.

“Contraband runners. Probably weapons to and from one of the resistance pockets,” he warned the Atlas before switching frequencies. “Attention Olkari supply vessel, this is Lieutenant Kogane of the Voltron Coalition. You’re taking off outside of permitted fly zones. Please slow down and prepare to be escorted to a Customs checkpoint.”

The ship began to slow, but as soon as the Black Lion did as well it put on a burst of unexpected speed.

“Yup, he’s running,” Keith reported. “And running fast, those aren’t standard issue thrusters.”

He sped up and gave chase, firing warning shots over the ship’s hull. He closed the distance quickly, and was about to overtake his target when a sudden flash of purple light ahead distracted him and made him instinctively slow down to avoid it.

“Wormhole!” He realized, flipping his communication channels back open.

“Not one of ours,” Krolia answered. “Allura’s still in Blue.”

“It’s different from hers, I’ve seen it before,” Keith ground out. “Haggar. Well her little friends aren’t going to make their visit.”

He targeted the ship, powering up his lasers. If Haggar could open a wormhole this close to Earth, Keith wanted to make it very clear to her that anything going through it would be blown to pieces. He was tired of the crumbling Galra empire and their constant grabs for power, none of them were coming near his planet ever again if he could help it.

“Keith, don’t shoot!”

“Hold your fire, hold your fire!.”

Krolia and Shiro both yelled out in unison, making him jump. The laser was already firing but he yanked back on his controls, sending his shot wide. The ship jumped and the wormhole closed, leaving him floating alone in space.

“What the hell is going on?” Keith demanded. “I could’ve had them!”

They were both ignoring him. There were questions and murmurs of confusion from the other Paladins, but he cut off his connection with them again as Kolivan’s image was patched through.

“I just picked up the wormhole on my sensors,” he told them. “Did anything come through?”

“No, just a contraband ship making a quick exit,” Keith confirmed. The other Lions became visible in the distance, finally approaching Earth.

“The signal you warned us about was some kind of trap,” Shiro told him.

“What signal?”

“The one Acxa called in,” Shiro was starting to look irate. “I sent a team in like you requested.”

“She called it in about two hours ago,” Krolia reminded him.

“Acxa is at the Garrison base, she was sent to coordinate with the cadet drones.”

Shiro and Krolia looked at each other. Keith got a sinking feeling something was wrong.

“What’s going on?” He asked again. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Shiro hit his communication console, dialing into the Garrison. He didn’t put it on speaker, so Keith could only hear half of the call.

“Yes, I need you to verify a visitor for me. Her name is Acxa, she’ll have checked in under Marmora clearance. Yes.” A long pause. “All right, thank you.”

He hung up and looked at Kolivan grimly.

“Acxa never checked in at the Garrison.”

“Cancel the exercises,” Kolivan said immediately. “I'll meet you aboard the Atlas.”

“Someone tell me what’s going on!” Keith lost his temper and yelled. “Why didn’t you want me to fire on that Galra ship?”

Everyone went quiet. Keith was ready to throw a fit, but Kolivan cut him off.

“I will arrive shortly.” His image flicked out.

“Come back to the Atlas, Keith,” Shiro ordered. “Come to my office.”

Keith wanted to scream. Shiro was acting like somebody died, he didn’t know how to handle it. Keith reported to Shiro but he was supposed to be the leader of his own unit, he deserved information. He gave in and turned Black toward the Atlas, listening to Shiro bark out orders to others.

“All pilots return to hangars aboard the Atlas. Cadets, land your drones and proceed to your dorms immediately, lock down will begin in thirty minutes.”

Keith brought Black into the Lion hangar just ahead of Pidge, followed up by Hunk and Allura. He discarded his helmet and disembarked, making a run for the elevator.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” Hunk asked as he passed.

“I don’t know!”

“Well what was up with that wormhole?”

“Hunk, I don’t _know_!”

He reached the elevator and slammed the buttons impatiently, growing more and more agitated at the slow pace it rose. The doors were barely open at the officer level before he was squeezing through, pounding down the long hallway to the Captain’s office at full speed. When he got there Keith threw the door open, barely managing to not knock out a medical technician who was standing just behind it.

“Somebody tell me what’s going on _right now_ or I’m going to make every person on this ship regret it!” He commanded. “I just let an enemy ship make a wormhole jump and prove to Haggar she has full access to Earth, and I want to know why!”

“Keith, calm down,” Krolia commanded. “Sit down, be quiet, and wait for Kolivan. We’re trying to verify what’s going on before we give everyone bad information.”

Keith gave a wordless growl of rage and kicked one of the chairs in front of Shiro’s desk. He crossed his arms and dropped into it petulantly, glaring daggers at Shiro as he conducted another phone call. Every second that ticked by made him more and more tense, by the time the door opened to admit Kolivan he was just about ready to burst.

Kolivan came and stood beside him, arms crossed in silence while he waited. Keith envied his ability to be calm under stress, his seemingly endless well of patience. Keith glanced up at him sideways, taking in his relaxed stance, and took a deep breath. He forced himself to relax as well, to follow Kolivan’s example. That was what leaders did, he supposed, they kept calm under all kinds of pressure.

Shiro finished his call and hung up. Krolia sat on the edge of his desk, picking up her tablet.

“A little over two hours ago, we received a call from Acxa telling us you and she had intercepted a Galra radio signal,” she told Kolivan. “We all figured it was a small resistance cell we hadn’t smoked out yet, laying out traps under cover of the exercises. Since all of the Earth-bound Blade were busy, she requested we send a team out to investigate.”

“We complied,” Shiro picked up after her. “We sent a ground crew of four, it was a routine mine sweep and disarm operation. When they arrived at the drop zone, all communications were jammed. I gave the order to proceed with caution.”

“The team went silent after the drop,” Krolia continued again. “Not unusual in a jam zone. Generally it’s about an hour without contact before we send a fly-over to check for trouble. We were just coming up on the hour deadline when we spotted a Galra contraband shuttle flying under an Olkari registration signal. Keith intercepted but that wormhole opened. Just when the Black Lion was about to fire on the ship, we received this over the radio.”

Krolia pushed some buttons on her tablet. The transmission was staticy, rushed and breathless.

“ _Scout-201 to IGF Atlas, pilots down and aboard Galra shuttle. No eyes on scout unit, weapons lost, signal was a trap. Repeat, signal was a—_ “

It cut off in silence. Keith stared at the tablet in her hands, an icy feeling starting to slowly wash over him. The voice wasn’t clear and the signal was terrible, but there was no way he would ever not recognize who was speaking. Shiro was saying something else, but he didn’t hear it. He felt like somebody else was moving his body as he got up, reaching out and pulling the tablet out of Krolia’s hands before she could protest. He played the transmission back again.

“ _Scout-201 to IGF Atlas, pilots down and aboard Galra shuttle. No eyes—“_ He stopped the recording and played it again.

“ _Scout-201 to IGF Atlas, pilots down and aboard Galra shuttle. No—_ “ He stopped it. Backed it up, played it again.

“ _—pilots down and aboard Galra shuttle—_ “

Keith stopped the recording. Everyone was looking at him. His brain had already put everything together but he wanted confirmation. He wanted to hear it from Shiro.

“Who piloted the scout team out there?”

Shiro didn’t look at him. “We only had two pilots on the Atlas at the time and it was a routine—“

“Not what I asked you," Keith interrupted. "I asked who piloted the scout team out there.”

It didn’t even sound like his own voice to his ears. Keith could admit that he could be demanding, that he had a temper and he lost it sometimes. But this was very different, he wanted to be answered when he asked a question and if he wasn’t, he felt like he could and would tear the heads off everyone in this room. He almost scared himself. Almost.

“James Griffin, pilot, and Lance McClain, copilot,” Krolia was the one who answered.

Keith threw the tablet onto the desk. He kicked the chair he’d been sitting in out of the way and headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shiro asked.

“To my Lion,” Keith snapped. “I’m going to try to trace the readings from that wormhole to find out where they went and I’m going to bring them back.”

Keith heard the door click just before he reached it, but he tried the handle anyway. When it didn’t open he twisted it in anger, frustrated at being blocked. He turned to glare at Shiro, who still had his hand resting on the automatic lock control on his desk.

“Unlock this door.”

“No. Sit down.”

“Unlock this door, or I’ll rip it off its hinges, so help me God.”

“Keith,” Krolia had risen from her spot on the desk. She came closer, but stayed just out of his reach. “I know you’re upset right now, but this isn’t helping anything. You can’t just run off with no plan.”

“I didn’t ask you _._ ” He didn’t know what was wrong with these people. When he asked a question he wanted an answer, when he made a demand he wanted them to act. He didn’t want extra information he didn’t request, or advice he didn’t need. “Open. The door.”

“No.” It was Shiro who answered, rising and coming around the desk. The way he stood there, looking at him like he was angry, set something off in Keith.

It felt like…some kind of challenge. Shiro had told him no thousands of times, but it had never made him this furious before. He was the Paladin of the Black Lion, arguably one of the most powerful weapons in the universe even on its own. He didn’t have to answer to anyone, he didn’t have to let anyone tell him no. If he wanted something and it wasn’t offered fast enough, he could damn well take it by force. Anything he demanded, anything he desired, if he wanted it then it was his.

Apparently this was something these people needed to learn the hard way.

His bayard flashed into his hand, arcing upward in a motion that sliced off a lock of Krolia’s hair as she leapt back to avoid it. The glowing blade of energy that had sparked to life crackled with quintessence as he pulled it back and slammed it through the door, cutting the thick metal like it was paper. It slid down almost a yard, melting the steel around it and sending steam hissing up into the air.

Keith froze as the momentum of his blow ended, snapping back into awareness. He dropped the bayard like it was on fire, the blade flickering away and letting it fall to the floor as he backed away quickly. His heart was racing and he was panting, shocked by his own violent reaction.

_How did I do that?_ Why _did I do that? Mom…I almost hit Mom!_

He spun around, to make sure he hadn’t actually hit Krolia with the blade, knowing he’d never forgive himself if he’d managed to hurt her. Before he could turn all the way he was grabbed from behind by a powerful arm around his middle, pinning his own left arm down against his side. Krolia appeared at his side, grabbing his right wrist and twisting his arm back and out, forcing him over even as Kolivan held him still.

Keith instinctively tried to thrash himself free, but the two Galra held him steady. The young med tech, who he had completely forgotten about, buried a syringe in his bicep.

“Ow! What the hell are you doing?” Keith fumed. “What was that? What did you do!?”

His arm felt like it went cold. The feeling spread quickly, up into his shoulder and through his chest. It hit his head and he suddenly felt dizzy, his legs going weak. He couldn’t hold himself up under his own power and started to sink, until Kolivan picked him up like he was nothing and slung him over his shoulder.

“I see you learned from his incident at the Blade of Marmora headquarters,” Kolivan’s deep voice seemed to echo through the room. Everything was strangely warped to Keith’s ears and his eye were completely out of focus.

“I did.” Shiro’s voice? Maybe. “But I actually thought we’d be dealing with him sending the Black Lion on a rampage, not…whatever that was.”

“We all know what that was,” Kolivan answered grimly. “We’ve all seen it before.”

“And never under good circumstances,” Krolia, softer than the other two. Keith thought he felt her hands touching his face. “ _That_ was Zarkon’s sword.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Six months ago_** :

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to blink. It hurt to swallow. It pretty much just hurt to exist, and that was just his body. The emotional trauma was so mind-numbing the physical pain was tolerable, some moments he almost wished he’d never woken up at all.

Keith lay in his room in the Garrison base hospital, staring up at the dark ceiling. The nurses had practically forced his mother to leave, almost giving in to Krolia’s fight simply because she was Galra and they were afraid. Kolivan had stepped in to talk sense into her and they’d left to get some rest about an hour ago, leaving him alone.

The ceiling was painted white, there was a crack in it that kind of looked like a cat. His view of it was interrupted by the two blood bags hanging on the pole above him, one human type O and the other a bag donated by his mother. They slowly dripped down their separate tubes, combining at a makeshift fork where they made their way to the needle in his arm in a single tube. Not exactly a perfect match for him in either case, as it turned out, but both were universal donors for their species.

They were almost empty. How long ago had they been hung up there? How long had he been here? He didn’t even know anymore, he spent so much time drifting in and out of consciousness.

He looked up at the cat on the ceiling. Slowly, blearily, he raised an arm up until his hand covered it, his focus shifting from the crack to his fingers. He wiggled them, closed them slowly into a fist, flexed the muscles of his arm. It hurt.

His door was open to allow the nurses to peek in on him occasionally without waking him, and he heard some noise in the hall. Voices trying to be quiet and failing, as the McClains slowly took their leave for the night as a group. They trooped down the hall, the double doors at the end creaking as they opened and eventually falling shut with a click to leave the hall in silence.

Keith stared up at the cat again. His eyes trailed over to the blood bags, just about finished. On a whim he reached over and pulled the needle out of his arm, absently dropping it to fall where it would.

He didn’t really want to go back to sleep, that was when the nightmares started. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the bright light, felt the violent pressure of the explosion, felt the momentum carry him forward into his viewscreen as Black came to a sudden halt and the aging restraints gave way. All in the dark, pitch black with no light after his power failed, with no sense of what was going on or what was happening to the others.

Keith sat up in his bed. His broken ribs screamed in resistance when he coughed softly, and the movement pulled his surgery stitches. The floor was cool under his bare feet as he carefully got up and went to the window to look out through the blinds, using first the chair by the bed then the window sill for support. He just had to reassure himself, had to make sure. Outside, the world was quiet and peaceful.

No Galra. No cruisers. No laserfire in the distance.

He toddled over to the hospital bed, feeling like he was learning to walk all over again. All of the little wireless monitors taped to him to keep track of his vital signs tugged at the skin where they were attached and his cuts and bruises ached. He found his phone where his mother had hooked it into the charger, not that he could make any calls even if Earth still had reliable cell service. It had been more than a year since he’d been around to pay his bill.

But the calendar still worked, and that was what was important. And according to the calendar it had been five and a half days since they’d left the base in MFEs at zero hour.

Five days since he’d seen any of their faces.

Keith looked down at the hospital gown he wore, like an uncomfortably oversized orange and white t-shirt. He didn’t like it, at all, but he knew regular clothes would be incredibly painful. Still, he carefully stood on his toes to take down the jacket Shiro had left behind during a visit, almost losing his balance just from the simple act of trying to reach the hook. He pulled it on carefully, clenching his teeth against the pain of the fabric rubbing against his bruised arms. It was better than nothing.

He didn’t make any noise as he stepped out into the hall, feet still bare on the chilly floor. Spring hadn’t quite bloomed here, the nights still fell cool. He hugged the jacket closed around him to ward off a shudder, his body not quite up to keeping him warm yet. He could only see from one eye thanks to a bandage hanging down in front of the other, but in his muddled state it never occurred to him to reach up and move it.

Pidge’s room was next to his, K. Holt was on the door and he could see Sam Holt dozing in a chair when he looked in. Likely allowed to stay past visiting hours because he was Garrison staff. Keith bypassed that room, not wanting to be told to go back to bed. The next room was labeled A. Altea and was closed. He didn’t know why they would feel the need to force a last name on Allura, but either way he wasn’t going to make noise opening the door.

H. Garrett’s door was open and nobody was there. Keith stepped inside and made his way to the bed, looking down at the pilot sleeping there. Hunk was covered in dark bruises, his neck in a brace. The table by his bedside had a big vase of flowers and was covered with boxes of snacks. He was sleeping soundly, his face serene. Keith guessed he had finally been able to connect with his family, even if it was under these circumstances. He very much hoped Hunk was happy.

He let himself out and went to the next room. L. McClain, also quiet and dark with the door open. Keith hesitated outside of this door, a pain in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t really know if he was ready for this one.

Quietly, he pushed the door open a little further and stepped inside. There was no sound except the soft noises of the machinery, no one here but the boy laying in the bed. Lance seemed at first to be sleeping, but when Keith got closer he could see the morphine drip hooked to him. Even unconscious there were dark circles under his eyes, and half of his face was a bruise. His hands rested over his stomach, two broken fingers in splints, and he also had a blood transfusion bag hanging over him and an oxygen tube wrapped around his nose.

Keith felt a little stronger now that he’d been moving. Not by much, but enough to pull a chair over so he could sit beside the bed. He watched Lance sleeping for a bit, watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“Shiro told me you saved me,” Keith whispered after a while, the soft sound feeling harsh in the silent room. “We’ll probably never talk about it face to face while we’re both awake, so…I remember how bad it was up there. I know how hard it must’ve been for you to jump start Red. There was no reason for you to do it, but I’m only still here because you did. Thank you.”

Lance remained unresponsive, kept asleep by the morphine and possibly an extra sedative. Keith had already gotten the basic rundown of his injuries from Shiro, he would be surprised of the other boy was actually awake. Punctured kidney, collapsed lung, some broken bones, some internal bleeding. And although it hadn’t been said, Keith knew at least part of that had to have been caused by the impact of Black hitting Red when Lance tried to change his fall trajectory.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, resting his head tiredly on his arms on the bed. “I should’ve been the one to take the rover. I knew it should be me but I let them talk me out of it. If it was me there, you would’ve been safely in Red. You would’ve thought it through like I never do, you’d realize it was weird that I’d been spotted by so many Galra at once.”

He reached up, lightly touching Lance’s hair.

“You’re the one who measures situations, not me. I was just freaking out like an idiot, but you wouldn’t. You’d realize we were sold out before we ever attacked the cannons. Maybe we would’ve gone back to the base and come up with another plan. Maybe in those hours we wasted on Sendak’s ship Pidge could have come up with a way to take over the cannons, used those against that thing and destroyed it without us all ending up here.”

A lot of maybes, a lot of what ifs. A lot of things he felt Lance would have noticed that he didn’t, if only he hadn’t been in that stupid rover.

Keith’s eyes rolled to the side, looking up at Lance’s sleeping face without moving his head. He seemed peaceful at least, and he would hopefully be okay. They would all hopefully be okay.

“I kind of want to say something,” Keith murmured into the empty room after a few minutes of quiet. “It’s really hard to say, so I don’t think I can do it while you’re awake. I don’t want to chase you away, you know? I need you here. So you don’t have to ever hear it, but I still have to say it. We never know what’s going to happen, I may never get the chance again and I’ll always regret it if I don’t.”

He sat up, carefully getting out of the chair to sit on the edge of Lance’s bed instead. He hugged himself against the slight chill in the room, looking down at the bruised, sleeping face.

“I realized something while we were on our way up to get rid of that thing, right after I told everyone it was an honor flying with you all. I mean, I always felt a certain way, but we were less than a minute away from death and all that was going through my mind was finding a way to shield Red so you’d make it. If I could’ve ordered you to back off without the others realizing, I would’ve done it. How selfish is that? It’s pretty bad, right?”

Lance obviously didn’t answer. He slept on, oblivious to his visitor. Keith reached over to take Lance’s uninjured hand, holding it lightly between both of his.

“I never understood this rivalry thing you had going,” he admitted, lightly rubbing the cool skin under his fingers. “I never…didn’t like you. I guess I just didn’t know where you got this weird image you had of me, I didn’t know why you thought I was so bad. And when you came at me with it I got defensive. But then we started getting along, and we got along really well. We got to this point where I literally can’t be a leader without you there to back me up. If I have to go do something on my own and I don’t have you there to step in and lead the team for me, I’m a wreck. After Shiro and my mom, I think you’re the only person in my life I really trust completely. And…”

Keith took a deep breath, looking down at his hands. There were just some things that, once said, could never be unsaid. Even if there wasn’t actually a witness to it.

“And I…love you,” he said finally, very quietly. “That’s it. That’s what I realized up there. I didn’t care if I died to save the world, I didn’t care if the Lions got wrecked to save Earth. But knowing you were there, that your family would never see you again? All I wanted in that moment was for you to be down on the ground. I wanted you to be one of the people I was saving. I thought that would’ve been worth dying for.”

A helicopter went by outside, the lights flashing across the window, and Keith tensed. He instinctively waited for the sounds of laserfire and explosions, and even when they didn’t come it was a long few minutes before he relaxed. He lightly folded Lance’s hands back on his stomach and slid off the bed, leaning against the side.

“So there we are,” he said finally. “I love you. And because I love you, I want you to be happy. So I’m happy for you that Allura is alive and well. I can’t promise I won’t be an asshole about it now and then, but half of me is only human. I’ll try to be good about it, I really will, but I’m sorry in advance if I’m not.”

He hesitated for a moment, then leaned down to lightly brush his lips across Lance’s as he slept. Straightening up, he smoothed back the other boy’s hair and then let his hands fall away. He was tired, even this little bit of traveling down the hall had taken a lot out of him.

Keith was only a few steps outside of Lance’s room before a flustered nurse found him, scolding him for scaring her by not being in his room. He let her take him back and help him take off Shiro’s jacket to lay back down in bed, and she brought him some painkillers and something to help him sleep. When she was gone he leaned over the side of the bed and coughed the pills back up, brushing them under the bedside table before laying back down.

He stared up at the ceiling, fighting against sleep and the nightmares it brought, studying the cat-shaped crack.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day_** :

Keith woke up pissed. At everyone and everything, from every time period from the beginning of the universe to its end.

“Why am I handcuffed to a headboard!?” He screamed, yanking on the metal cuffs that held both of his wrists to the steel loops at the head of the infirmary bed. They were specifically made for the purpose of keeping injured prisoners bound, which meant he had no success at trying to rip himself free. “Get these off of me!”

He started twisting and stretching, trying to maneuver in any way that might help him pull his hands free. He didn’t really care of he broke his thumbs or worse at this point to do it, writhing like a cat caught in a trap.

“Nobody is unlocking you while you’re acting like that,” Kolivan said calmly from where he sat in the corner.

Keith fell still, panting from the exertion. He glared at Kolivan, then around the room. His mother was in another chair and Shiro had just come in and was standing in the doorway. Someone had removed his armor, he was only wearing his under-armor and the handcuffs.

“You drugged me!” He accused Shiro.

“You tried to murder my ship,” Shiro shot back.

“You let two of our pilots get taken to God only knows where by a psychotic witch!” Keith shot back. “Let me out of here, we need to find them!”

“We’re going to find them,” Krolia said firmly. “But unless you can calm down and act like a reasonable Galra, it will be without your help. I understand your anger, this is very personal for you. We all understand. But if you act too rashly, you might end up getting yourself _and_ those two pilots killed. Both of them, not just Lance.”

Keith let out a growl and pulled against the cuffs again in irritation, sliding all the way down the bed as far as he could go. He wanted to kick or bite or punch something, or maybe commit a felony, something to discharge this burning fury in his chest.

But there was no one here to go up against, not on the Atlas. He thought back to Shiro’s office, to that outburst that felt like he was watching from the outside instead of taking part in. Curling his hands into angry fists, he stopped actively trying to break his own wrists.

“Fine,” he allowed, albeit with an attitude. “Then what are _we_ doing to find them?”

“We ran the signals you got from the wormhole and traced it,” Shiro answered, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. “Then we loaded the Atlas with its crew and all the pilots, and we made the jump. We’re about two thirds of the way across the galaxy right now, but there’s nothing here. That wormhole must have been opened from on a ship, and when the shuttle came through it must have docked and jumped somewhere else.”

“That doesn’t sound like we’re finding them, that sounds like we _lost_ them,” Keith pointed out.

“We have the Lions out scanning ever square inch of space in this vicinity,” Krolia chided. “Hopefully we’ll find traceable signs of another wormhole, or warping of space from ship engines. We’re not doing nothing, Keith, it’s just going to take time.”

Keith groaned and let his head fall back against the pillow in frustration. Space was huge, a ship could have gone a few light years in literally any direction before opening a second wormhole. Then it could have made a third jump from wherever it landed. By the time they figured out where Lance and Griffin had been taken, they could both be dead.

“What about the Blade?” He asked, turning to Kolivan. “Most of the new recruits grew up in Galran society, can we send any into the cities to see if they can at least find out what faction Haggar’s backing these days?”

“I have two on it as we speak,” Kolivan answered.

“Look, Keith, we need you to calm down enough to get you back into Black,” Shiro said reasonably. “We need you out there scanning with the rest of them, but I absolutely cannot have you dart off and leave everyone behind the second you think you found something. We all want to help Lance and James, as soon as possible. It’s the number one priority of literally everyone on this ship right now. Can we trust you?”

Keith glared up at the cuffs on his wrists and sighed, deflating a little. Deep down he knew there was nothing he could do himself, he just felt…like he’d failed.

He’d been the one who’d brought Acxa in. He’d been the one who offered her a chance, and this was the result. Keith knew this stemmed from his decisions and so was his fault, and that eventually he would have to do something to make it right. But for now he knew the others were right, he had to keep his head on straight.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll try to stay calm. I’ll try to listen.”

“That’s about as close as we’re going to get to a promise,” Shiro said, nodding to Krolia.

She came over and released Keith’s bindings, pulling him into a tight hug once he was free. He hugged her back, taking some solace in the fact that he knew she really did understand what he was going through. Kolivan and Shiro returned to the bridge and Krolia brought Keith his armor.

He suited up quickly and returned to the Black Lion, starting him up and fighting the urge to fidget as he launched to join the others.

_Patience yields focus_ , he told himself repeatedly, activating all of Black’s deep space scanners.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he had any of either one at the moment.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the comments, they really are helping to tell me what works with the story! I have a full time job and I'm doing college classes full time, so I don't get the chance to respond as I would like to, but I appreciate it!

Signs of Balmera-powered engines were picked up a full five hours after Lance and Griffin’s disappearance. They were traced to a nearby planetary system but nothing there was inhabited, it had just been a fly-through so solar radiation would obliterate any further tracks and throw off searchers. Acxa simply knew too much about the Voltron Coalition’s procedures, hope of finding her was dwindling by the minute.

Six hours after the trail was lost, the Atlas had returned to Earth and the Garrison was preparing for the potential of an attack now that the Galra were able to wormhole right into their backyard. The Paladins assigned shifts for sleeping, two on and two off, to make sure there was always someone alert and ready to go.

It was Hunk’s shift. He sat at a console across from Pidge in the reference room in the labs, running data and crunching numbers. Their technology had improved by leaps and bounds in the last six months thanks to all the Coalition contact, but answers they were looking for still weren’t forthcoming. Models of how an interstellar ship might travel required knowing both where it was going and where it had already been, calculating them from just the origin point to find the destination was borderline impossible.

But it wasn’t like they had anything else they could try while they waited for somebody to come up with a plan.

The lab assistant sitting next to Hunk shut down her console and stretched. It was getting late, and all the non-specialists were on their regular shifts.

“I’m about to head out for the night,” she announced to Hunk and Pidge. “You guys want any coffee or anything on my way out?”

“No thanks,” Pidge said politely. Hunk shook his head in the negative, giving her a thankful smile.

She bid them both goodnight and made her way out of the reference room. Hunk went back to watching numbers fly across his screen, his smile fading and his face falling back into a frown of worry. He felt helpless and useless. The two main things he was good for were slamming into things with Yellow and running numbers for answers, and neither of those was any good for anything at the moment.

“He’ll be okay,” Pidge said quietly, not looking up from her screen but reading his anxiety nonetheless. “He’s Lance. And he’s got Griffin with him, they’ll hold their own until we find them.”

“They said they found blood when they tracked down the takeoff point,” Hunk mumbled, absently hitting some buttons. “What if it’s theirs?”

What if it was _Lance’s_? Hunk didn’t want to think that, but the idea kept worming its way into his head. It made him feel sick to his stomach and it hurt at the same time, the same sort of feeling he’d had when he’d been afraid for his parents’ lives.

Lance had been his best friend since grade school, they'd been roommates since they first started at the Garrison. Sure, he’d gotten Hunk into plenty of trouble, but it was the memorable kind that made for great stories. He was the one who’d been there when he’d first bonded with Yellow, and had tried to stay by his side even though Hunk had to admit there were times when he’d ditched him for Pidge. Having Lance missing now made him keep thinking back to those weeks while they were working with Lotor, when they’d ignored him in favor of their own projects together. Now he was gone, and Hunk felt guilty.

“It wasn’t enough for any kind of mortal injury,” Pidge assured him. “I saw the pictures, it looked like a lot because of the pattern but as far as wound severity it really wasn’t. We’ve all been taken by the Galra before, we’ve all been hurt in the process. We’ll find him, and he’ll be alive when we do.”

“Come on, Pidge,” Hunk gave up trying to pretend everything was okay. “We’ve only ever been taken by the Galra because we did something dumb to get caught. This was a trap laid out specifically for Lance! Acxa pretended to try bonding with Red so she could ask us those questions. She wanted to make sure he had no access to a Lion or the red bayard. Remember her asking if a Paladin could call it? And then that phony signal investigation. Keith said she was at the base the day before asking about where Lance would be during the war game. She knew he and Griffin were the only pilots available and that they’d be sent out. Why do you take the easiest Paladin to kill if you’re not going to kill them?”

“Lance isn’t easy to kill, don’t _say_ that!” Pidge snapped angrily, hitting the table with her fist. She caught herself, pulling off Matt’s old glasses and rubbing her face with both hands. Hunk tapped dully at the keys in front of him. “Sorry. I know you’re really worried. We’re all really, really worried, Hunk. But she had the chance to get rid of him here, he was still alive when he went through that wormhole. He’s alive for a reason, we just have to find him before there isn’t a reason anymore.”

“So let’s turn our attention to that reason, then.” Hunk looked up to find Allura in the doorway, with Keith right behind her.

Keith, who was wearing Lance’s jacket.

They both looked as tired as he felt, but he wasn’t surprised they weren’t asleep. These first hours were crucial, and even if all the adults on the base were working on the problem the fact remained that the younger Voltron Paladins had a very unique view of the situation.

Allura held the door open for Keith and he brought a tray over to the table. Hunk smelled chocolate before a mug was even placed in front of him, and felt his stomach start to rumble. When was the last time they’d even eaten?

“Your mom sent this down,” Keith told Pidge, handing out tinfoil-wrapped sandwiches once the hot chocolate mugs were set out. “She figured you’d be here all night.”

Hunk watched him set everything out before taking a seat. Keith was really tense, more than he usually was, and his expression was pretty harsh. It was more reminiscent of the way he’d been when he first came back from that whole space whale debacle than how he’d been recently. Lately he’d been the fun, sort-of happy Keith he’d been when they’d first gotten to know him, now he was spiraling.

“Well, we know it doesn’t have anything to do with the Lions,” Pidge reasoned, picking up her mug. “Acxa knew Lance was done with Red. So it’s something to do with Lance.”

“Or something to do with us,” Keith added, absently swirling the hot chocolate in his own cup. “She came to us way before he quit and she’s been here ever since. This was a long con, and she acted as soon as one of us was vulnerable.”

“Okay, but outside of the Lions, what do we even have that’s worth abducting over?” Hunk asked. Personally, he knew he wasn’t worth much if he didn’t have Yellow or his bayard to hand over. “Sure, Allura’s an Alchemist and you’re pretty much the only half-human Galra in existence, but me, Pidge and Lance are just humans. What is there really in common between the five of us that grabbing any one of us would be fine?”

“Something we did, maybe,” Allura supposed. “Somewhere we’ve been, something we’ve seen, something we know. The Coalition’s tactics have changed drastically since Earth became its home base and we’re all central to its function, Lance has been privy to just as much crucial information as the rest us.”

“We need to keep in mind her destination too,” Keith reminded them. “Those wormholes can only be opened by Alteans, and the glyphs on the one they went through match Haggar’s. She wouldn’t be involved if Acxa was only taking a Paladin for her own gain, there’s something Haggar specifically wants.”

“Like an Altean mech pilot?” Hunk asked. Everyone looked at him with varying levels of disbelief or irritation and he put up his hands in surrender.

“No, hear me out. That thing dropped down on us out of nowhere, right? And we scoured this solar system, there was no sign of anywhere it was sitting back waiting to be sent in. It only showed up after we took down Sendak, like it was sent in to clean up the mess. What if Haggar dropped it out of a wormhole? All of our attention was on a fight on the ground, we’d never notice.”

“I guess…it _was_ code from Shiro’s arm that started shutting down the Castle and overloading the teludav,” Pidge said reluctantly. “Haggar knew we had Lotor, she must have been watching somehow. Maybe through the ship’s monitors from that code, maybe through the clone with her magic. But if she was watching when Keith and Romelle told us about the Altean colony,  she would have known to go and clear it out while we were stuck in the time dilation.”

“Okay, say for the sake of argument that the Altean we have in custody was actively piloting that mech,” Keith reasoned. “Still, she’s only been here for six months, and with the power behind that self-destruct, she would’ve been in tiny pieces if it exploded here on Earth. That was a suicide mission, there’s no reason for Haggar to think or care that she’s even alive. Whatever she wants, it came into play before we came across Acxa on that Galra cruiser.”

“We killed her son,” Allura said quietly. “ _That’s_ what happened before we ran into Acxa.”

Hunk looked down at his half-eaten sandwich, awkwardly picking at a piece of lettuce. Allura sounded really hurt when she said it, and he felt bad for her. Sure, they had all trusted Lotor, but Allura? She’d been falling in love with the guy. Yeah, he’d turned out to be a psychopath, but for a while there Lotor had actively given Hunk hope. Those days messing around on the Galra cruisers, talking to Galra soldiers who turned out to be just normal people who thought they were fighting for the good of their kingdom, he had really seen the potential for peace there.

And sometimes, when he thought about having to go out there and maybe fighting against the same Galra he’d laughed and told jokes with…it made him a little bit sick.

“So, revenge then?” Keith asked hollowly. “We took something from her, she’s going to take something from us?”

“Maybe,” Allura answered. “And she knows we’d do anything for each other, it wouldn’t matter to her which one she took.”

Hunk felt sicker. He watched the numbers going by on his screen, watched them blur as his eyes started to sting. Pidge was right, they’d all been taken prisoner before, but he knew he was right too. Lance and Griffin’s weapons were found along with the blood, they were both unarmed and at least one of them was injured. There was no calling a Lion for a quick rescue, no Altean Castle technology to track them, no Blade agents to back them up.

“I don’t buy it,” Keith broke the silence. “Torturing or killing one to hurt others is a Galra move, we’ve seen it with Sendak, or with Zethrid and Ezor. Haggar’s driven by her work at the expense of everything and everyone else. There’s something she’s working on and she thinks we’ve come across it before.”

“Something she thinks can destroy the Lions,” Pidge agreed. “Otherwise she wouldn’t be willing to try and wipe us out with that mech and risk losing what she thinks we know. We should assume that’s the case and keep working with that in mind, assume Lance is alive and that neither of them do anything stupid until proven otherwise.”

Nobody else said anything, and he knew they were all thinking the same thing. Griffin had never fought the Galra outside of Earth, and had a really big mouth and an attitude problem. Lance could—and would—get himself killed protecting him, unless the other Paladins figured out how to find them they were toast.

Allura and Keith booted up consoles and started trying to run down their own leads. Pidge stared at her screen like she could will it to give her the information she wanted. Hunk gave up on getting any useful information from his program until it was done.

He looked around at the others, all tired and grim. Without their armor or uniforms, sitting around in casual clothes, it almost felt like they were just a bunch of students cramming for midterms. Allura’s ponytail hadn’t been brushed since the war games started, she had stray hair sticking out all over the place from all the activity she’d been through and she was still in the yoga pants and t-shirt she’d been trying to get some sleep in. Pidge had kicked off her shoes at some point and was sitting cross-legged in her chair, the table in front of her covered with pages she’d scribbled on and torn out of her notebook. Her own hair was more of a mess than usual as she kept running her hands through it in frustration.

Keith was…purple.

Well, not necessarily _purple_ , but more purple than usual. There had been a faint Galra stripe coming in on the left side of his face for at least a few weeks, but it was darker and more visible now. The other one seemed to stretch further than it had before, going down under his collar instead of disappearing at his neck. And there were some strands of color starting to show in his black hair. A sort of pinkish-mauve, like his mother’s hair.

None of that had been the case this morning.

Keith looked over at him, and Hunk flicked his gaze to his screen. He waited until the other Paladin was paying attention to his work and looked over again, trying to be stealthy. Keith didn’t have his Marmora blade on him like usual, or the issued gun that was always at his hip. Which probably had something to do with the very visible metal ankle cuff he was wearing. They all knew there had been some big blow up with Shiro and Kolivan, and that the Black Lion had been out of commission for a few hours after, but no details had come out so far.

Keith’s leg shifted, moving further under the table to hide from view, and Hunk knew he’d been seen looking. As much as he hated making waves, it was probably time they all talked about a few things.

“So…are you gonna tell us why you have an ankle monitor on?” Hunk asked out loud. “Is that to keep you on the base?”

“I’m under house arrest,” Keith grunted, hitting the keys at his console harder than necessary. “Base arrest. Whatever. I’m not allowed to leave the Garrison without permission.”

“Looks like you tried to cut it off,” Hunk observed, leaning over to look at the small nicks in the metal. “Is that why they took your knife?”

“Yes.”

“Does it have anything to do with your face?”

“What’s wrong with my face?” Keith asked sharply.

Hunk looked back down at his screen. He wasn’t even sure where in the job his algorithm was anymore. Pidge and Allura glanced over at Keith but then dropped their gazes to look across the table at Hunk instead of looking him in the eye. It was one of those really uncomfortable moments where they all normally would have looked to Lance to say what they were all thinking. But Lance wasn’t here, so apparently he was next in line.

“Just say whatever you’ve got to say,” Keith said irritably, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms as he looked at them all.

“Okay, we’re worried,” Hunk admitted, finally looking up at him from his screen. “ _I’m_ worried. You got that first mark on your face from the quintessence blade Shiro had near you, right? And Lance had those Blaschko’s lines visible where all that quintessence hit his arm when you guys deployed Voltron’s wings. And Lotor had Altean markings on his face, we saw them near Oriande, but his Galra coloring covered them after ten thousand years of messing with quintessence.”

“So?”

“So I don’t think it’s a really big leap to say quintessence exposure brings out features that are there but usually invisible,” Hunk pointed out. “And you have a _lot_ of latent Galra features coming out lately that we couldn’t see before.”

“Are you accusing me of messing around with quintessence?” Keith asked defensively.

“I’m not accusing anything, I’m asking you straight up!” Hunk wasn’t stupid, he already knew what was going on. This wasn’t some little thing, it was very relevant given who they were currently up against as the war went on. “Those Lions run on quintessence and we’ve all seen you calling Black to heel lately like he’s a puppy. You don’t even have to think about it half the time, it’s like you’re always plugged in. So _are_ you messing around with the stuff?”

Keith looked around the table at them. Hunk saw the trapped look on his face and knew he wasn’t going to answer, it wasn’t really a surprise when he shoved his chair back, knocking it over as he got up and left the table.

“I don’t need this!” He exclaimed as he stormed out of the room. “How about you all concentrate on finding Lance and Griffin instead of on what you think I’m doing wrong!”

He slammed the door behind him, and Hunk looked over at the others. Allura looked distant and Pidge looked sad, but obviously neither of them were going to do anything. Not that he blamed them, really. Keith had always been borderline confrontational with Allura and Pidge was better with technology than with people. Hunk got up and left the room, spotting Keith on his way to the elevator across the lab.

“Hey! Wait up!” He called, running to stick an arm between the doors before Keith could get them to close. From the other pilot’s sigh of annoyance, he wasn’t happy to not have the ride alone.

“You need to get back there and finish running those jump patterns,” Keith said harshly. “Not follow me around.”

“The computer will run them whether I’m there or not,” Hunk answered. The elevator only had one level to go up so the doors opened shortly after. He followed Keith out into the quiet base. “Listen man, when I say I’m worried I really mean that I’m worried. I’m not trying to attack you or anything, honest. You’re my friend, I’m not worried about you doing something wrong, I’m worried about something happening to you from it.”

Keith went out the doors and started across the lawn, toward the small barracks where the Paladins had taken up temporary quarters. It was dark out there, away from all the indoor lights, with thousands of stars visible overhead. Hunk jogged forward and stepped into Keith’s path, holding out both arms to stop him from walking.

“Keith, come on. You have a house arrest bracelet on. They took your Marmora blade. Are you really going to tell me everything’s fine and normal with you?”

“Nothing’s been fine and normal with me in my whole life,” Keith answered, ducking under one of Hunk’s arms. “Nothing’s going on that I can’t handle.”

Hunk twisted around and grabbed the back of Lance’s jacket. He was pretty sure Keith wasn’t willing to pull hard enough to rip it, or willing to escape without it. Keith tried to pull free but Hunk’s hunch proved to be right, after a minute he stopped fighting and stood still, letting his head fall back in exasperation.

“Please just leave it alone, Hunk.”

He clearly didn’t want to talk about it. But that was one thing Hunk had noticed about Keith, he never really wanted to talk about anything. Talking always made it better in the end, but the actual conversing part was like his own personal circle of Hell.

“Sorry, but I can’t,” Hunk answered firmly. He gave Keith another pull, dragging him back further so he could move in front of him again. This time he held him back with his hands on the other pilot’s shoulders. “Not just because you’re my friend, but because you’re Lance’s. He wouldn’t be afraid to call you out if he was here, but since he’s not then I'll do it for him. Come on, man…after all we’ve been through, you can tell me what’s going on. I’m not going to judge, I just want to _help_.”

Keith wasn’t the kind of guy who sat around feeling sorry for himself. He sulked sometimes, sure, but his go-to reaction was usually to fight the world out of spite. Giving up wasn’t really his thing and Hunk knew it. But he also knew what everyone else on the team knew, that Keith wasn’t really a lone wolf. Sometimes he needed to know he wasn’t fighting alone.

“It’s complicated,” Keith said after a moment.

“I’m an engineer,” Hunk reminded him. “Try me.”

That wasn’t the answer Keith wanted, but it was the answer he got. He was still adjusting to this whole “having friends” thing, but eventually he would learn that it meant never being left alone.

“Okay, fine. When I first took over for Shiro, I always felt like it was just going to be temporary,” Keith admitted, shoving his hands in the pockets of the jacket and kicking at the grass. “I never saw myself as the leader of this team, I was always sure Shiro would recover from everything and come back. I was just standing in and doing my best to give directions. That changed during the Last Stand. That was when I realized that I’m the Black Lion’s Paladin for good, but that didn’t mean I was ready for it. You know, you attend the Garrison and you get this nice, clear path laid out for how to get from a cadet to an officer. You get trained by people who know what they’re doing, you get experienced people on your team. You get taught how to strategize, how to lead, how to make decisions.”

It wasn’t hard to see where Keith was going with this line of thought. He was basically saying out loud everything that had gone through Hunk’s own head when they’d made him sit in the Black Lion to see who it would choose.

“Keith, you’re a pretty decent leader,” Hunk tried to reassure him. “Even without all that training, just look at everything we pulled off with you in charge. We overthrew a Galra invasion! On Earth, one of the least-equipped planets to fight back!”

“Yeah, but it could have gone the other way just as easily,” Keith murmured, wandering a few steps away to absently grind a fallen leaf into the dirt. “The Lions could have not come when they were called. We could have been killed by Sendak instead of held prisoner long enough to escape. Everything we do now comes at my order, every choice I make could cause someone to get hurt or die. And I’m not giving orders to a unit of hardened soldiers, I’m giving orders to my friends. My _family_. Every choice I make could end up with somebody I love being dead. Shiro made one seemingly harmless decision today and now Lance is—“

Keith cut himself off, irritably pulling Lance’s jacket around him tighter again even though the night was only a little bit cool.

“If Shiro’s experienced choices can end up with people abducted—maybe dead—at a point where we think we’re at peace, what kind of damage can my half-cocked decisions do?”

Hunk didn’t envy Keith. Or Shiro, for that matter. He had never wanted to be a leader himself, he’d never had any need for glory or fame. He’d joined the Garrison to explore space, to help further human knowledge. The weight people like Keith and Shiro carried wasn’t something he was familiar with, but he could understand.

“So sometimes you decide to take the edge off?” He asked.

“I tapped into the quintessence field through Black during the Last Stand,” Keith revealed. “Once I knew how to do it, it just got easier and easier. I’m not exposing myself to it directly, I only tap into it through my Lion. There are fail-safes there to make sure too much doesn’t go through, at the time I thought it wasn’t enough to mess me up like it did Zarkon.”

Hunk looked down at the ankle monitor on Keith’s leg, raising an eyebrow. “And now?”

“Now I know it’s enough to mess me up like it did Zarkon,” Keith murmured. “But there’s no way to stop from going down that road. I can’t just not fly Black, I have to. And like you said, thanks to my bond to him I can be plugged in all the time if I get the urge.”

“So the marks on your face?” Hunk prodded.

“I attacked my mother, Kolivan, and Shiro earlier. Lance is gone, maybe being tortured, maybe being executed. There’s nothing I can do to fix the mess I’m in. So I spent the last four hours straight high out of my fucking mind,” Keith said dully. “The bracelet can’t really stop me. I was still in my room but Black was out of his hangar until right before I came down to the lab.”

Hunk had promised not to judge, and he wasn’t. But he had to admit that it seemed pretty bad, and there wasn’t any clear cut answer. Quintessence addiction wasn’t exactly a well-studied science with a plethora of treatment options available, and Keith was right that they needed him in the Black Lion.

“Okay, so this looks bad,” he admitted. “But now I know, and I’ll help any way I can. So will the others.”

“I’d rather not tell the others,” Keith winced. “I know they know something’s up, but I’d rather not give them the details yet. I was hoping to find some way of…getting clean or whatever, before I tell them. Everyone has enough to worry about.”

Hunk’s phone started to beep, and then so did Keith’s. They pulled them out and checked the message that had come through from Pidge.

“Looks like she found something,” Keith shoved the phone back into his pocket and started back the way they’d come. “Let’s cross our fingers that it’s useful.”

Hunk put his phone away and followed, looking out across the dark grass. When he’d first started attending the Galaxy Garrison, he’d never dreamed he’d be walking across its campus under circumstances like this.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Garrison, second year, September:_ **

“Three, two, and one,” Lance said decisively, pointing out three people around them. “Two and one are sort of tied, but I think I’m more into blonde right now. Thoughts?”

Hunk sat in the grass next to Lance, his class schedule resting on one knee and his agenda book on the other as he ate his lunch. He was trying to plan the most effective study schedule for the classes he’d had so far, and he was only partially listening.

“What are we ranking?”

“Prettiest girls in the courtyard right now."

Hunk looked up at Lance’s choices. He found today’s rankings slightly suspect. “Yes to three, two is a guy, yes to one.”

“What? No it isn’t,” Lance sat up a little and double checked. The dark sunglasses he was wearing did absolutely nothing to hide where he was looking since he was so over the top about everything.

“It is.”

“She has long hair!”

“ _He_ is a dude.”

“Okay, well, if that’s a guy then it’s a really pretty guy,” Lance insisted.

“No, he just looks like a guy,” Hunk disagreed, looking back down at his schedule. “You’re allowed to think a guy is pretty if he fits your taste, though. My aunt likes other women sometimes.”

“Huh.” Lance was watching his unwitting target over the top of his sunglasses now. He had a slightly confused look on his face that made Hunk wonder if he was about to have a rare moment of self-realization. Then his eyes seemed to almost glaze over and he shoved the sunglasses back up on his nose, letting himself fall back on the grass.

“He must be new.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Hunk asked, pausing in biting into his sandwich to look down at his best friend. God he was so bad with faces and names. “That’s Keith Kogane, he was in our math class last year.”

“Right, right, Keith Kogane, math class,” Lance repeated airily.

“You have no idea who he is, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Dude!” Hunk jabbed at Lance’s arm. “He’s K.K.! See a freaking doctor about your memory!”

“What!?” Lance shot up into a sitting position, his sunglasses falling off his face. “No way! That guy is amazing! Isn’t he friends with _Shiro_?”

K.K. were the initials of the top scorer on the flight simulator, the student Lance had been chasing since their first year. As of yet Lance was still only the number three score, behind Kogane and James Griffin, but if he kept practicing like he did Hunk figured he’d probably at least surpass Griffin. Kogane was on a whole other level though, he was probably going to be the top score in the system for years after they all graduated.

Lance jumped up to his feet. Sensing impending disaster, Hunk dropped his sandwich and made a grab for his friend’s ankle, tripping him up and sending Lance sprawling in the grass.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“I _was_ going to say hello,” Lance muttered into the grass. “He’s just sitting over there alone.”

“I don’t think Kogane’s the kind of guy who looks for friends, Lance, especially not loud ones like you. And remember what Marco told you last week.”

“Veronica’s a girl and gets away with more, I have to stop acting like her because it makes me look creepy,” Lance sighed.

“Not necessarily creepy,” Hunk disagreed, patting Lance’s shoulder. “You just tend to act in a way that makes some guys—not me of course, I love you and I think you’re amazing—but you’re not always good with personal space and you make some people feel a little weird.”

Hunk was at least seventy-percent sure Lance had a small thing for some guys. He was so completely out there with everything he did it was impossible to say for certain, but he had a tendency to treat girls he was attracted to and some boys he met the same way. He was an absolute flirt, and since he did it to the point where he wasn’t even aware of it anymore Hunk had noticed he didn’t always differentiate between the sexes.

“Hm,” Lance sat back, folding his hands and pressing his index fingers against his lips thoughtfully. “I’m pretty awesome, I guess I can be kind of intimidating.”

“Yeah, “intimidated” is one description of how Kinkade looked when you asked if you could feel his muscles in Phys Ed, I guess,” Hunk mumbled. “Just leave Kogane alone.”

“Well that isn’t gonna happen,” Lance said way too cheerfully, sliding the sunglasses back on his face. “Dude, Takashi Shirogane is my hero! You think I’m going to let somebody who’s cool enough to be his friend slip through my fingers?”

“Hopefully.”

“I can’t just be loud and obnoxious though, you’re right. Cool people aren’t into that, I’m going to have to impress him.”

“It’s only the first day of classes,” Hunk groaned, throwing a potato chip at Lance. “Can you please not cause any disasters until at least the second week? My mom said if I let you get me one detention before October I’m grounded through all of Christmas break.”

“Hunk, my man, come on,” Lance snorted, stretching back out in the grass. “This is me we’re talking about, what could possibly go wrong?

* * *

**Garrison, second year, April** :

Lance was a disaster, and it was making Hunk’s life difficult. He’d run out of fingers to count the detentions they’d been in so far this year, and it was only by the grace of God that they’d made it this far without suspension. But Hunk wasn’t so sure that would still be the case by the time the end of the year finally came.

First of all, puberty was rolling in and a lot of guys had gotten growth spurts and started filling out over the course of the year. Hunk happened to be one of them, which was nice since he was tired of being shorter than some of the girls here. James Griffin was another, and so was Keith Kogane. Lance was not one of them, which put a huge chip on his shoulder. That was the first problem.

The second problem was that at over the course of the year, Lance had become ridiculously high maintenance. They were bunk mates, but the lights didn’t go out at night until Lance had finished exfoliating, conditioning his hair, moisturizing his skin, and buffing his fingernails. He slept with a cooling mask on his eyes. He spent the hour waiting for his peel-off mask to dry scrolling through pictures of baby animals and making Hunk look every five seconds. The work was paying off, Lance definitely caught a lot of looks from the girls, but Hunk was exhausted.

The third problem was that Lance McClain was a natural pilot…when he flew like Lance McClain. But over the last few months, more and more, he didn’t seem to be handling the simulators like his old self. His specialty used to be squeezing through tiny spaces at super high speeds—that was why everyone called him The Tailor last year, after all—but his scores had been tanking.

Hunk had watched him in the simulator during their lunch break, trying to practice. He kept doing this weird thing where, when he hit a certain speed, he’d reach to his right for some kind of control that wasn’t there or slam his foot down as if there was a pedal that could be used. Inevitably he’d get confused when his only control was a stick, and he’d crash and burn the simulation. This was happening more and more often, and if he didn’t get his disconnect fixed soon he was never going to pass muster for fighter class piloting.

He didn’t personally have that problem himself. He was training to be an engineer, he never pushed himself too fast in the simulator…it made him nauseous.

Hunk leaned back in his chair, yawning widely. Lance was sitting in front of him, turned backwards in his desk, using Hunk’s desk to draw out a new game of Hang Man. Even for being backwards he wasn’t sitting normal, he had one leg slung clear over the desk itself instead of down under it so his foot could rest on the ground.

_He can’t even_ sit _straight this year_ , Hunk thought boredly.  _Like the constant finger guns weren't already a bi mating call._

Lance had fortunately not tried to insert himself into Keith Kogane’s personal space—Kogane was actually kind of bad news and Hunk was sure Lance would probably get knocked out—but that hadn’t stopped him from his goal of impressing the best flier at the Garrison. The issue there was that at some point Lance’s goal had gone from being impressive enough to be considered friend-worthy to just impressing Kogane at all.

Lance had a crush. A huge one, and he didn’t even realize it.

As per usual, Lance kept shooting looks over at Kogane. Kogane was in the middle seat of the front row, where he’d been specifically put by the teacher since he refused to pay attention any other way. Not exactly in a position to easily look over and see the spastic Cuban kid who’d been unintentionally and unknowingly pining after him all year. Hunk couldn’t wait for summer break, a stretch of blissful weeks during which he wouldn’t have to watch this sad teen documentary playing out. He yawned again.

“Sorry, am I boring you?” Lance asked, flicking his eraser at Hunk’s chest.

“No. I’m just exhausted because I share a room with a freaking Disney princess,” Hunk answered, letting the eraser fall to the floor. “You didn’t stop doing your stupid splits until almost eleven last night.”

“I have to keep in shape,” Lance answered indifferently, turning the Hang Man sheet to face Hunk. “Fighter pilot. It’s in the name. I have to stay flexible if I want to be able to fight.”

“You’ve never been in a fight in your life.”

“I have too! I used to take Karate, remember?”

“Yeah, but your mom took you out of that class after only two months when you let that girl punch you in the face because she was pretty,” Hunk recalled. “That’s how you ended up in dance classes instead, _remember_?”

“How could I forget?” Lance asked, a dreamy smile settling on his face. “Do you know how many pretty girls are in a ballet class, Hunk? A lot of them.”

Hunk balled up the Hang Man paper and bounced it off Lance’s face. As it bounced back he caught it and threw it across the room to keep Lance from grabbing it. To his surprise, and great satisfaction, it landed squarely in the wastebasket all the way at the far corner.

“Three pointer,” Hunk grinned.

“Nice,” Mary Lafitte praised from her seat beside him. She gave Hunk a smile, which immediately irritated Lance.

“Oh please, anybody could make that shot,” Lance complained. “Don’t go thinking you’re special.”

“Oh, can anyone make that shot?” Hunk teased. “Okay Tailor, let’s see you do it.”

Lance grabbed Hunk’s history notebook, and out of spite tore out a page with his notes in it even as he tried to rescue them. He balled the paper up and gave it a throw, but because he was sitting with his leg up so weirdly his angle was off. It hit the side of the wastebasket and bounced across the floor.

“Nice shot, _Tailor_.”

Keith Kogane rarely spoke to anyone, unless picking fights with Griffin counted. He really didn’t need to comment, and the bit of attitude he always spoke with definitely wasn’t warranted. Mary covered her mouth but it wasn’t hard to see she was snickering, and Griffin leaned forward from his seat behind Hunk.

“Damn, McClain…even the social outcast knows you can’t live up to the nickname anymore,” he whispered. Hunk “accidentally” hit him in the face with his elbow while stretching.

Lance’s face looked annoyed, but Hunk knew better. He was pretty sensitive about his flight performance as it was, and now the dude he’d been secretly worshiping for months had just jabbed him in that sore spot. And more than just Mary and Griffin had noticed.

He got up and went stiffly to the wastebasket, picking the paper ball up and dropping it in. He hissed something at Kogane when he passed; Hunk didn’t hear it, but he doubted it was polite. When he came back he threw himself into his chair, arms crossed, staring straight ahead.

Lance didn’t say much else when class ended, and Hunk didn’t sit next to him in flight class. Which was good, he knew Lance was struggling to pay attention and get his scores back up and he didn’t want to distract him. Unfortunately halfway through, Kogane decided to be a jerk and slammed Lance’s plane out of formation in the simulation. Lance’s concentration was pretty much shot for the rest of the class, which resulted in his most dismal performance so far this year. In front of their visiting pilot, Takashi Shirogane, no less.

As they left class and headed back toward the dorms, Lance was uncharacteristically silent.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day_** :

Hunk could hear Pidge and Allura talking before they even reached the door of the records room. Something had them worked up, which in his experience was never a good thing. Keith heard it too, halfway across the lab he picked up the pace to a jog, shouldering the door open and bursting into the room.

“What’s going on?” He demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“We don’t know,” Allura answered from where she was furiously typing. “It might be some kind of file corruption or maybe just a glitch, but I don’t see any problems from the information transferred from the Castle.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Hunk replied, looking between the two girls. “Can somebody give me a little more detail than that?”

“The program we put together the other day to run the Lions’ records,” Pidge told him, looking up from her console. “To compare it to other opponents we were up against to try and decide if the mech that Altean was in was actively being piloted? It’s still running and I was checking its results.”

“The data transferred over from the Castle was grouped in with everything we downloaded from the Lions after that system upgrade we did to the Garrison’s storage capabilities two months ago,” Allura added. “That program has been mining everything from the time you arrived on Arus…but there’s also data from before.”

“Before?” Keith seemed a little bit lost, which wasn’t really unusual. Normally he and Lance would have been feeling lost together, but now he was the odd one out. “Before what? Before we got there?”

“For the universe, it’s been ten thousand years since the Lions were built,” Pidge explained. “But the Lions and the Castle spent almost all of that time dormant. For them it’s been probably less than thirty years of active use, total, and they have all of it on record!”

“So, wait, you’re telling me we have records of everything the original Paladins did in those Lions?” Hunk asked. “That’s so cool!”

“I guess that makes sense, and seems pretty straightforward,” Keith said. “So what part of that might be a corrupted file?”

Allura and Pidge looked at each other. It was like some kind of silent battle to see who would have to speak, and in the end Pidge lost. She sighed and punched some buttons on her console, bringing up the data on the other screens. Hunk dropped down in his seat to take a look.

“The records mean that we can pretty accurately tell who was in the Lion at any given time, from a mix of how they piloted and how the Lion reads their quintessence.”

“Wait. Back up,” Hunk squinted at some of the information that was coming up. “This can’t be right.”

“What?” Keith asked, leaning over his shoulder to look even though they both knew he would have no idea what he was even looking at.

“This is from right after we all called our Lions from Saturn,” Hunk answered. “When we couldn’t get through to Lance, just before Red decided to finally save his butt.”

“So?” Keith prompted. “What does it say?”

Hunk looked up at Pidge. Pidge looked at Allura, who looked between them both. It was Allura’s turn, so she took one for the team and translated the information presented out loud.

“Based on the quintessence and the Paladin’s brain functions, it says at that time Zarkon was piloting the Black Lion.”


	14. Chapter 14

It was almost twelve hours, according to James’ watch, before anything of note occurred.

After the wormhole jump the shuttle had docked with a bigger vessel. Lance had gone into panic mode, which was both annoying and unsettling at the same time. Annoying because it made it difficult to think, unsettling because the guy had calmly faced down imminent death before. James didn’t even know what he was saying, everything came out in a hushed, quick jumble of terrified Spanish that sounded like he was talking or praying to himself and not James at all.

Acxa had returned to the cargo hold and opened the shuttle’s back doors, letting light flood in and revealing the hangar they were in. The ship they’d docked with wasn’t too much bigger, but it was staffed by Galra soldiers just the same.

She had thrown him a bare-bones first aid kit at some point, but since she’d removed anything he could use as a weapon James’ patch job on his leg was messy at best. All it really did was cover up the surface wounds, he could feel every time he moved that bone was shattered and broken all the way up into his knee. It was entirely possible he’d never walk on this leg again, not that it seemed he had too much life left to worry about it.

Acxa made Lance shut up at least; a couple shocks with the nasty taser she carried left him leaning in the corner of his cell curled in on himself in silence. He didn’t move for the duration of the trip. She’d settled in on the floor of the cargo hold to keep an eye on them, probably to make sure they didn’t speak to plan anything.

It was overkill. What was James even going to plan with nobody to work with except an unarmed sniper? Maybe if he’d gotten Pidge or Hunk, they had brains. Allura was a fighter. James even would have taken Kogane at this point, at least he knew what he was doing sometimes.

A Galran soldier appeared at the open cargo bay door at a little past the twelve-hour mark to let Acxa know they had arrived at their destination. She requested he go find two others to help her with her prisoners, and opened James’ cell while she waited. He didn’t wait for her to decide he needed painful prodding, he carefully got up to stand on his one good leg and half-hop out of the cell using the wall as a support. She made him stand against the wall by the door then opened Lance’s cell, training her blaster on him.

“Get up.”

Lance didn’t move. He stayed in the corner of the cell, wrists still bound behind his back, staring down at the floor. Acxa holstered her blaster as she grew impatient and drew the taser, letting the high-pitched whine of it charging up fill the cargo hold. That got Lance’s attention, he got to his feet slowly and followed her directions to step out of the cell. He made it a few steps but then froze when he looked out the open hold door, visibly locking up in fear at the sight of the Galra soldiers moving around outside.

“Walk,” Acxa was getting annoyed now and it showed. Lance didn’t move, James wasn’t even sure he heard her. “I said _walk_.”

She planted a foot in his lower back and send him stumbling forward. James had to move slightly to the side to avoid being knocked into as Lance slammed into the wall on his way down to the floor, and when Acxa turned the taser on him for the sudden movement he threw his hands up.

“Don’t shoot _me_ , I didn’t do anything!” James protested.

Acxa snarled and stepped forward. Then all hell broke loose.

Lance was suddenly on his feet and he was moving fast. His hands were in front of him now, shifted in a show of very impressive flexibility under cover of being sprawled on the floor. He leveraged himself off the wall to spring forward, catching Acxa in the solar plexus just under her chest plate with an elbow. As she started to double over he pulled her blaster out of its holster, spinning around behind her and throwing his bound arms over her head in the same motion.

The choke hold wasn’t as solid as it could be since his wrists were still cuffed and he was holding the blaster, but as they both went down to the floor it fazed her enough for him to get off a shot with her weapon.

One shot, while falling. It hit the lock of the cockpit with a precision James had honestly thought everyone was exaggerating when they talked about the battles they’d been through. Then Lance was on his feet again, throwing himself into the cockpit as cover and firing out into the cargo hold and hangar beyond.

James dropped down to the floor and made himself as small of a target as possible, hoping that precision shooting was standard for Lance and not just a lucky shot. He heard at least one soldier out in the hangar take a shot and go down, and another calling for medics. Acxa had recovered and rolled out of the way, her taser on the other side of the open cockpit door and out of her reach.

James saw her eyeing it. She saw him looking. They both dove for the weapon at the same time and he got to it first, but she was a lot stronger than he’d given her credit for. Too strong for her size, it almost seemed. He struggled to keep her from getting it until she slammed a fist into his knee, sending such a ripping pain up through his body he thought he might black out.

She threw him to the side and ducked against the wall again, going low to lean into the cockpit and get Lance with the taser from down at his feet.

James heard him make a sound of pain. The shooting stopped and she dove into the cockpit. After a few more sounds of struggle Lance flew out into the cargo hold and rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of blood droplets from a deep cut slashing downward over his right eye. Even then he didn’t stop, he was back on his feet and falling into a fighting stance without pause.

Two Galra soldiers finally made it into the cargo hold, training their weapons on him. James saw him instinctively reach down to his side, then saw his eyes widen in realization. He grimaced, mouthing a swear to himself as he remembered he no longer had access to a bayard. Defeated, he relaxed and raised his hands over his head in surrender.

“Okay, my fault,” Acxa wiped  a trail of blood away from her mouth, seething but keeping herself in check remarkably well. “I underestimated you.”

“Don’t feel bad, people do that a lot,” Lance answered.

He was entirely different than he had been for the last twelve hours, he’d really devoted himself to lulling Acxa into a false sense of security. Even as more Galra soldiers came in and forced him to his knees he kept his glare on her, like he was trying to make sure he didn’t forget her face for however many of his next reincarnations it was going to take to hunt her down.

“General, the bridge is paging you,” another soldier appeared in the doorway of the cargo bay. “The ensign says we just started broadcasting an SOS on Coalition channels.”

“You little son of a…fasten his hands behind his back, bind him at the elbows!” Acxa commanded the soldiers, darting back into the shuttle cockpit. When she reappeared she looked even more pissed off, stepping into James’ abandoned cell and grabbing what was left of the gauze roll.

Once Lance’s arms were pulled painfully back behind him she grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back, taking one of the guards’ knives and tying it point-up to the front of his neck with the gauze. When she let him go his head fell forward slightly and the blade dug into the skin, sending a rivulet of red trickling down his neck. He quickly learned to keep his head stiffly back.

“If you so much as breathe too hard, I’ll have your ankles manacled too,” she threatened, motioning to the guards. “Get him moving, and someone keep eyes on him at all times.”

James tensed as Acxa marched back to him, grabbing him by the back of his flight suit and dragging him up to his feet. He had to limp and she was impatient, finally shoving him at two other Galra soldiers and making them half-carry him. They left the hangar, disembarking the ship and stepping out into the hall of some kind of station.

One wall was made of glass, or more likely some kind of reinforced clear polymer. They were orbiting a small planet that was obscured at the moment by cloud cover, and the station was part of a strange mass of artificial satellites linked together almost haphazardly. At first glance it looked almost like some kind of ship graveyard, but as they moved through the halls and he got different views James could see that the whole thing was just built fairly quickly from spare parts. The ships that were docked here were varied in size and design but the vast majority of them were Galra.

As they passed through another door James caught sight of a symbol painted on the outer hull of the main hub of the base, one he was intimately familiar with.

“So what is this?” He braved speaking, testing his luck. “Sendak’s home base?”

“It’s the Fire of Purification’s home base,” Acxa corrected him irritably. “I’m pretty sure you were there when Sendak was killed. Throk runs this faction now, so watch your mouths unless you want your tongues cut out.”

“My tongue’s going to get cut out if I don’t watch which way my eyeballs roll,” Lance muttered from up ahead of them. Acxa hit him between the shoulder blades with her knuckles.

They reached a fork in the hallways and Acxa came to a stop. She turned back to the two guards helping James and pointed to the right.

“Take him down to the medical cells. Let the warden know he’ll have to be fixed before he can be transferred over to the pit.”

“Wait, what?” James stiffened and tried to stop himself from being pulled as the two Galra started to do as they were told. “What’s the pit? Hey! Where are you taking McClain?”

“Look, you have me already and I’m not going anywhere, why can’t you just drop him in a pod and shoot him off somewhere the Coalition will find him?” Lance was fighting now, but he was bound up too tightly to do much. “You don’t need him here anymore!”

“Your solidarity is touching, it really is, but I have things to do. Go,” Acxa ordered the guards firmly.

James tried to put up a fight, but with one leg out of commission all they had to do was pick him up. The Galra were much bigger than he was and he was still cuffed, all he could do was thrash and make their lives more difficult as Lance disappeared in the opposite direction.

* * * * *

 ** _Six Months Ago_** :

Lance stared numbly at his viewscreen as he maneuvered Red into place under one of the mech’s legs, ignoring the ache that had been growing in his chest since the rover crash. It was becoming a little bit hard to breathe and his body wanted desperately to rest, but there was no time for that now.

“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” he murmured to himself as he fired up his thrusters, feeling Red try to pull the power she needed to rise. “Which will be in like, five minutes, tops.”

He was feeling curiously detached, like he was watching everything from somewhere else. He was sitting in the pilot seat, but at the same time it was someone else at the controls. He didn’t feel fear, or sadness, or desperation. If he felt anything at all, it was an overall absence of strong emotion. A vaguely nihilistic annoyance, or maybe a mildly frustrated irritation that they were backed into a corner with no way out.

Lance hadn’t really felt anything since he’d stared down a striker a few hours ago. He had accepted his death then, every minute he got after that just somehow felt like borrowed time. Well, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything, it was that he was resigned to this end. This was apparently the story of their short lives; for every hurdle they made it over a higher one came along until they ultimately couldn’t reach the top.

They were rising slowly. Too slowly. Lance felt like he was going to throw up, his muscles throbbed like they’d been pulled taut for hours and his right arm had a sharp pain running through it from using his bayard. The Lions were supposed to dampen the energy that went through them but a lot of things had been damaged in the fight and the backlash from his bayard port had hurt like hell.

“You must be feeling even worse, eh Red?” He whispered, gripping the controls tightly. His thrusters were already going full blast, they just didn’t have the energy to fire.

“Come on…come on…” Keith was mumbling to Black, trying to urge his Lion to move faster as well. Clearly Lance wasn’t the only one having issues.

Lance felt almost like he had a fever, like the cockpit was on fire and he was slowly heating up. Did it always feel like this? Maybe it did and he didn’t notice because he wasn’t hurt. Or maybe he was just paying closer attention to everything so he could try to forget he was about to be blown into tiny pieces.

“Dying a virgin,” he said out loud, checking that his mic was muted. “I honestly didn’t see that coming.”

“It’s been an honor flying with you all. Now everyone, give it everything you’ve got,” he heard Keith say softly over the comms.

Nobody else responded, but he could see on his feed that Allura had disconnected her communications. Probably to save power. Keith’s image stayed up on his screen, his lines still open, so did Hunk and Pidge. Lance left his mic on mute.

“You know what’s not fair, Red?” Lance asked, starting to pant a little. It was getting really hot in here. “Keith’s probably not dying a virgin. Hunk definitely isn’t, he had a girlfriend in third year and I heard all the details. From her, not him…that man’s a legend. But I’m over in the other category with the girls. I don’t want to stick Allura in a box, but she’s one of those proper ladies so I’m going to bet she is. Pidge definitely is. Well, Pidge damn well better be, or I’m going to have to haunt someone’s ass.”

He took a deep breath, his lungs feeling like they weren’t quite filling enough.

“That’s okay though, it just means I’ll get into heaven easier, you know? I mean, I’m a tease, but it doesn’t count if you don’t follow through on anything, right?”

His skin was burning and everything hurt, and the usual steady tingle he often felt when Red was charging from low power was currently a stabbing river. He felt light-headed, his vision temporarily blurring, but he forced himself to relax and open up more. It didn’t matter how much damage ended up being done to him, he was done for anyway.

“Hey,” he said lazily, flipping his mic back on and lightly tapping Keith’s video feed, opening a private connection between the two of them. He was starting to feel pretty out of it, like his brain was fuzzy. “I’ve been meaning to tell you…you should smile more. You have a nice smile.”

“It’s a little bit late for that,” Keith answered quietly. He was concentrating on his Lion, but out of them all he seemed to be handling the strain the best. He looked a little pale and tense, and was probably gripping his controls hard enough to nearly rip them out of the floor, but he was steady and conscious.

“We’re not dead yet, babe,” Lance said absently, closing his eyes against the pain he felt in them. “Soon, yeah, but not yet.”

There was a sharp, stabbing sensation behind his temples, like his brain was slowly overloading. He felt the tickle of blood running down over his lip from his nose, the faint sensation of it pooling and slowly dripping down the sides of his neck from his ears. He wasn’t sure what being drunk felt like, but he thought the fogginess in his brain might be something like it.

“Alma mía,” he sang softly to himself. “¿Que te hace pensar que no te quiero, si tu amor es la fuente que me inspira, a vivir y sentirme tan feliz? Alma, alma mía, ten confianza y comprende que te quiero, si ya en ti se ha cifrado este cariño, de quererte con eterna devoción…”

 

Lance stopped singing and hummed the tune quietly, letting his head fall back against his seat. He thought about home, about his niece and nephew down below being able to grow up in a world free from Galra occupation. About Veronica and Rachel being able to finish college if they wanted. About his mother and father being able to help raise their grandchildren in a hopefully peaceful world.

He thought about Hunk’s parents, who would soon be free from the work camp. He thought about Sam and Colleen Holt, who would fix up the Atlas and pick up where they left off protecting the Earth. He thought about Coran and Romelle, who would continue the search to find the missing Alteans and bring them home. He thought about Krolia and Kolivan, who would continue the fight and honor Keith’s memory.

He thought about the people here with him, suffering in their last moments alongside him. Pidge, his substitute sibling while he’d been away from his family. Hunk, his best friend since middle school. Allura, the first girl he had actually really fallen for. Keith, just…everything about Keith in general.

Lance thought about Red, about the thrill of punching her accelerator to the limit. The adrenaline rush that came from maneuvering her through fields of obstacles and enemies, taking down strikers and cruisers. He thought about how in sync they were sometimes, on his good days when he really knew who he was and didn’t question himself. The Blue Lion had been an amazing experience, but Red? When it worked, it _worked._ Regardless of whether Allura ever gave him the time of day, Red would have been the main lady in his life for as long as he lived and breathed.

It felt that way now, like he could feel the space cooling his own skin instead of the outer metal of Red’s hull. His eyes stayed closed but he could see his surroundings, see the stars in the distance. One last view of the galaxy before he went.

The view suddenly disappeared and he felt as if he were dropped into his seat with force. The labor returned to his breathing and he was once again in pain, but the ache in his temples was fading. His head cleared a little as his cockpit went dark, Red’s systems beginning to toggle on or off at her whim instead of his. He had been through this before, the first time he’d flown Blue, but it was still disconcerting.

His viewscreen was still up, he could see the mech ahead of them starting to glow. The other Lions were stopped as well, the sound on his comms had been turned off but he could still see Pidge and Hunk fighting to stay conscious. Keith was awake, he was saying something on the private channel but Lance couldn’t read his lips.

The glow got brighter and Lance tensed for the impact as Red’s particle barrier went up and focused itself to the front. But his view of the mech was eclipsed by Black moving in front of Red a split second before the world ignited, Keith’s shields and the Black Lion taking the brunt of the explosion.

* * * * * * * * * *

 ** _Current Day_** :

“KEITH!”

Lance screamed the name, sitting up suddenly in bed. His heart beat so hard he could feel it in his throat, his hands were shaky and weak. The light was dim and the room was unfamiliar, he fought the sheet away and tried to stand on shaky legs.

“Hey! Hey, shhh.” Someone reading in the chair in the corner, previously unnoticed, rose quickly and turn up the small light on the bedside table. “You’re okay! Everything’s okay.”

Keith stopped him from going any further, holding him still with both hands on his arms. Lance looked wildly around the small bedroom, at the posters on the walls and books on the table and potted plants on the narrow shelves.

“Where am I?” He asked desperately.

“Uh…our room?” Keith had that perplexed look he did so well, but it immediately softened and he lightly rubbed Lance’s arms. He was barefoot, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt that looked like it had been painted on. God it was so not fair that he was built the way he was. “Is it your memory again?”

“My memory?”

Keith moved Lance back, pushing him to sit on the edge of the bed. Lance tried to focus on him, on the one safe and familiar facet of this strange place. But this place felt dangerous, foreign, and his gaze kept moving to the room.

“You’re on the Pandora. You sometimes have memory lapses. Two years ago we were in a fight with a mech that ended in an explosion and we all crashed when our Lions went dead. You had a head injury but don’t worry, this will pass.”

“What’s the Pandora?” Lance asked. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face, trying to make sense of this. Something nagged at him, something he’d just been doing. It was like walking into a room and forgetting why he’d come in. “Hold on, _our_ room?”

“Yeah. We’ve been engaged for three months, we decided we’re not sleeping alone just to pretend everybody doesn’t already know we have sex.”

Lance felt something go snap in his brain. His stomach lurched. He pursed his lips and made an unintentional whining noise. Keith sighed and moved past the bed, through the small area with just enough room for a two-seat sofa and low table, and opened the room to the quarters.

“Turn left. Third door on the right.”

Lance darted out of the room, following the directions as quickly as he could, nearly slamming into two curious women in Garrison uniforms. He found the men’s locker room, making it past the showers and into a stall just in time to hit his knees and start heaving. After a moment, he heard footsteps approach from behind and felt a hand rubbing his back soothingly.

“Sorry,” he groaned. “I—”

“Puke when you’re this nervous,” Keith finished for him. “I know. You have a lapse every couple weeks, this happens every time you find out. You should’ve seen what you did the first time you woke up like this while we were both naked.”

Lance heaved again.

“No offense,” he mumbled sickly.

“It’s fine. You’ll make up for it when you remember what I like later.”

Did this little quiznacker actually sound smug right now? Lance tilted his head up to glare back at Keith, who definitely looked like he was enjoying the torment just a little bit. He looked for something to throw, but it was a basic barracks bathroom with nothing to be used as a weapon. He groaned again and sat up, now noticing the thin silver band on his left hand.

It suddenly itched. He wanted to pull it off, throw it far away. It felt wrong.

“The Pandora…is a ship?” He asked instead, carefully getting to his feet. The small quarters and shared facilities were about on par with the Atlas. “A military ship?”

Keith put an arm around his middle, pulling him close and guiding him back the way he’d come. Lance walked stiffly, uncertain of how to react, but Keith didn’t seem to notice. As they walked Lance stole sideways looks at him, trying to gauge what differences a year and a half of his missing memory made.

He was bigger than Lance remembered, a couple inches taller than he’d been even before. Lance’s eyes were just barely at his chin, and it was disconcerting. The mullet was gone too, his hair had grown out and was held back at his neck in a ponytail. It was an even bigger, even cooler Keith than Lance remembered.

A stronger Keith, too. It didn’t slip Lance’s notice that he wasn’t really given a choice in where he would walk.

“The Pandora is an Atlas-class Coalition ship,” Keith explained. Lance noticed he moved to put himself between him and people in the hall, not that any of the people going past seemed to notice the two of them. There was something about them Lance couldn’t place, an idea on the tip of his tongue he couldn’t give form to. “We’re currently one month out on a retrieval mission expected to last two or three.”

“Who all is “we?”

“The Pandora crew, and the Red and Black Lions.”

The Red and Black Lions. That was himself and Keith, wasn’t it? Or was it? He couldn’t remember.

A black, feline-like creature padded past them in the hall. Lance had always had a soft spot for animals, he paused and reached down to run a hand along his back as he went by.

“Hey, Kova. You’re not being too hard on the mice around here, are you?” He asked. The cat was temperamental, he allowed him to touch him briefly but then batted at him with his claws and darted on down the hall. “Cats and women. Ask them how they’re doing and they bite your head off if they’re in a mood.”

“Story of your life,” Keith said sympathetically.

They returned to his quarters— _their_ quarters—to find the alarm clock on the bedside table going off. It was a little past 8:30, not that he could tell out in space away from windows and a rising sun. Lance turned off the alarm and looked over at Keith, who had pulled off his shirt.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” Lance sputtered, spinning away to face the wall just as Keith hooked the waistband of his sweatpants to remove them.

“Getting dressed,” Keith answered dryly. “We have a morning appointment. What is with you? You’ve never been body shy in the entire time I’ve known you.”

“That was before!”

“Before what?”

“Before!” Before lance had realized he was interested in looking. Before Lance realized somebody else changing nearby might be looking at him with interest. “Just before! Can you just turn away please?”

“You’re adorable,” Keith said fondly.

Lance heard him gather his clothes and move over to the sitting area. He started looking in the few drawers, uncertain of what clothes might have been his own since he was now sharing space. He found a familiar Garrison uniform, standing apart from the rest by its blue jacket.

A Paladin’s uniform? His Paladin uniform. Was he supposed to still have this uniform?

He pulled it out of the drawer and held it up, momentarily forgetting himself and turning to Keith. Lance’s question died on his lips, the uniform forgotten. Keith was facing away, buttoning his black uniform pants. His back was to Lance, showing the black stylized lion tattoo that covered most of the skin there. It disappeared as Keith pulled on an undershirt and turned to grab his uniform jacket. He saw Lance staring and smirked.

“I’d ask if you like what you see, but I already know the answer.”

That broke the spell. Lance grabbed the tissue box off the bedside table and threw it at Keith, who laughed as he ducked it.

“Stop being a smug little shit!” Lance demanded. He held up the uniform. “Is this mine?”

“Well it’s too small to be mine, so.”

“A Paladin uniform?”

“A Paladin uniform. Did you expect officer stripes?”

“No.” Lance dropped the uniform on the bed and pressed his hands to his temples as a sharp pain hit him. So much about this didn’t feel right, but every time he tried to think about why, it hurt. It was like there was a wall that refused to let him think about anything besides the here and now, like there was a script he was supposed to stick to and it hurt to diverge.

“Relax. Breathe.” Lance felt hands touch his face, tilting his head up, and opened his eyes to find Keith now only a few inches away. “Stop trying so hard. I told you, it will pass. Just go with it until it does.”

Lance really wanted to believe it. But he knew better, so he kept fighting against the fog blurring his memory.

“What are we retrieving?” He asked, pushing Keith away.

“A weapon for the Coalition.”

“ _What_ are we retrieving?” Lance repeated, demanding now. The pain in his head wasn’t going away and now he was starting to feel nauseous.

“The Sincline.”

“No,” Lance said immediately, shaking his head. Were they insane? Retrieve the Sincline? He wasn’t the smartest person in any room he stood in, but even he knew that was a terrible idea. “No, absolutely not. That thing is right where it deserves to be.”

“It can punch fissures into space time and allow direct access to unlimited quintessence,” Keith answered, crossing his arms. “That’s unlimited power for Coalition ships, unlimited energy for recovering liberated planets.”

“Unlimited ammo for updated zaiforge cannons!” Lance exclaimed. “Unlimited range for planet killers! Unlimited God only knows what being churned out by the Galra bio labs that love sending weird, spliced robo-creatures after us! How are we even supposed to retrieve something we left dumped in the quintessence field?”

“First we have to find it.” Keith  was perfectly calm, spinning Lance around to face away from him and pulling his pajama shirt up over his head. He started to work him into an undershirt, but Lance fought him off. He wasn’t interested in getting dressed right now.

Keith  grabbed his wrist, hard, and yanked him back over. It hurt, and it caught Lance by surprise.

“Get dressed. There’s an Alchemist on board, we’re going to see her this morning. She’s going to help us revisit the day we fought Lotor and use the memories to find the right place.” He let go of Lance’s wrist, pulling him close into a hug. “You don’t have to worry. You don’t have to be scared. We have this all planned out, it will be fine. The Coalition needs this ship, Lance. It could save lives.”

The Coalition needed a lot of things to fight the remaining Galra occupations. It needed a lot of resources to free the remaining planets held under the broken factions, it needed a lot of help to rebuild and give people back their lives.

But it absolutely did not need Sincline.

“No,” Lance insisted. “I refuse to be involved with this.”

“Lance—“

“ _No!_ ” He said loudly, backing away until he hit the wall.

The pain in his head was still going but he pressed on anyway. There was too much wrong here, he just had to put together what. The uniform for one, what was wrong with the uniform? He didn’t wear that uniform anymore, did he? No, he didn’t. He didn’t fly Red anymore, he was assigned to the Atlas. Under Shiro, under James Griffin. What else? The tattoo. Why would Keith get a tattoo? Keith was fairy lights and adventure novels and sketchbooks, not tattoos. And even if this was a greenlit military project, this only involved the Black and Red Lions. Why would anyone send a crew to retrieve the Sincline without Allura?

“Get out,” Lance snarled, pushing back against the absurdity of it all. “Stop trying to mess with my head!”

The world pushed back for a few more beats, but when it became clear Lance wasn’t going to give ground the pain started to recede. The dimly lit room brightened, the bed and furniture and potted plants dissipating and leaving behind the telltale black metal walls of a Galra  prison cell.

Lance sank to his knees, wanting to throw up. He looked warily around the cell while he tried to compose himself, at Acxa and the two Alteans with her. Through the bars, in the cell across from his, he could see Griffin sitting against a wall looking grim. It took him a moment to remember where he was, that he was at a Fire of Purification outpost.

One of the Alteans moved, waving an arm to dissipate an image that had been floating on the air. Lance saw a brief flash of himself and Keith before it was gone and figured it must have been Acxa’s way of viewing what was going on.

“It’s been two days. Why don’t you just force the memory out of him?” Acxa asked.

“We tried,” the second Altean, a young man about Lance’s age, was standing in front of him looking down at him. “He fought it off.”

“He’s just a human, Natille. How did he fight it off?”

“I don’t know,” Natille said testily. “Why don’t you ask him? Forcing never works as well as coaxing anyway. It doesn’t help that I have you breathing down my neck, either. Go away and let me work.”

“You want me to leave you alone in a cell with a trained enemy combatant?” Acxa said, annoyed. “And risk having Honerva execute me for letting one of her druids get killed?”

“His wrists and ankles are bound, and _I_ don’t have any weapons for him to steal,” Natille answered. “And it’s been a day and a half without food or water, he’s not in any condition to hurt me. Give me an hour.”

“How about you all get out of my cell and let me slowly die in peace?” Lance suggested tiredly. “I’m pretty sure I can manage it without an audience.”

Acxa looked down at him. Her expression was unreadable, but that could have been because Lance’s head was fuzzy from almost two days without rest or eating. She turned back to Natille.

“Honerva will be back from Oriande soon, I need a location before she gets here and she’s not going to be happy to find out her allegedly high-skilled druids can’t even pull a memory from the weakest-minded Paladin they’ve got. I guess I should be glad I didn’t bring you one of the strong ones. Natille, you have one hour.”

“Good. Leave me alone and go do whatever psychos who punch people for fun do in their spare time.”

He had an attitude. It made Lance smirk a little to see it aimed at Acxa, and the way she ground her teeth at having to put up with it. She and the other Altean, a tall woman, left the cell, and Lance heard their footfalls slowly fade down toward the exit of the cell block.

Natille didn’t say anything, which was fine with him. Lance remained kneeling, letting himself slowly sink forward until his forehead just about touched the floor, eyes closing. He was tired and achey and his head hurt. He was past the point of being hungry, and had moved on to wanting to die soon purely out of spite. Maybe Natille would let him.

“How do you know Kova?”

Or not. Lance lifted his head tiredly, trying to ignore the cramps in his arms and legs from how he was bound.

“I don’t know a Kova.”

“The cat,” Natille specified. “In your memory.”

“I don’t know, it’s a cat,” Lance said testily. “I think he was my friend’s cat once. A long time ago, I don’t remember.”

“Did he die?”

“I guess.”

“The cat or the friend?”

“The cat. The friend. Both, neither, I don’t know. It’s a cat, I have a little bit more to worry about right now,” Lance complained. “Unless you want to do me a favor and just crack my skull open so I can finally rest for more than five minutes.”

Natille stepped forward, away from the wall. He disappeared out of view and Lance felt a tug at his wrists. A moment later his arms were free, and the Altean reappeared in front of him. Lance carefully moved his arms in front of him, stretching his sore shoulders as he sat back up. He rubbed his wrists, watching Natille suspiciously as he went to the bag he’d left leaning against the wall and took out a bottle of water.

He opened it up and offered it, but Lance didn’t touch it. His refusal seemed to amuse Natille, who took a big sip from the bottle and then offered it again.

“It’s not poisoned.”

“Too bad, I was hopeful.”

Natille leaned down and pressed the bottle into Lance’s hands. That was when Lance realized that he was actually a she; the short way her aqua hair was cut made it an easy mistake to make in his condition.

“You have to drink some of this, I didn’t take into account that you might throw up. You’re a little more innocent than the things in your head led me to believe.”

She was referring to the droplets of moisture visible on the cell floor in front of him. Not that it was very much, he could feel his dehydration and knew he didn’t have much liquid to spare. Carefully, he raised the bottle to his lips and took a few small sips.

“You could’ve gone easy on a guy and not gotten so spicy right out of the gate,” he answered. He took a few more sips but then set the bottle aside. Too much too fast was not a good thing. “I’m emotionally delicate.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I just built the framework, all of that was your recent fantasies filling in the blanks. Your head’s an interesting mix of romance and hormones, I didn’t expect to find engagement daydreams _and_ a tattoo fetish.”

Lance paused in swishing the bit of water in his mouth over his dry tongue, considering spitting it at her. But that would have been a waste of badly needed moisture, so he fought down the urge and swallowed in instead. Looking down at the bottle, he changed the subject.

“So are you playing good cop to the she-demon’s bad cop right now?”

Natille took the water bottle when he handed it back, snorting audibly.

“I don’t want to be down here in the pit cells with a bunch of arena bait, and you don’t want to spend the next week having your brain picked,” she answered. “Here’s the deal: we’re going to find out what we want either way, the question is just whether it has to hurt. If you keep resisting me, Honerva will handle you herself when she gets back.

“You have an interesting mind,” she added, reaching down to poke Lance sharply at the back of his head. “There are parts of it that seem newly sensitive to quintessence, you keep using it against me to keep me out. But at the same time the rest of your brain can’t handle it, it’s being damaged when you do. That means we can run a lot of quintessence through you, and hurt you very, very much, before you black out. And we have access to some very pure, very powerful sources of quintessence.”

“Are you threatening to scramble my brain?” Lance raised his eyebrows, forcing himself to remain composed. “Because boy, have I got disappointing news for you.”

“I’m not threatening you with anything, I’m telling you what’s going to happen,” Natille shrugged. “I can make this easy for you. It can be painless. You don’t even have to die when it’s over, Honerva will be very interested in how a human can be so sensitive to quintessence. Or you can continue to not cooperate, and when she returns she’ll torture you until she gets what she wants, torture your fellow human over there while you watch for good measure, then dump your body somewhere.  And if you don’t give her what she wants then we’ll go after one of the other four who has the information.”

She started walking around him, her footfalls soft but still echoing in the cell.

“Your Altean princess…I notice you still have some feelings in there for her, I’m sure it would be a shame for her to be dragged in here next. Your little friend, the smart girl. Her cute little bayard won’t do her much good when she’s shackled in a cell like this. Do you think she’s the type to scream when her bones are broken, or just whimper? Maybe the big one who’s always afraid of everything. He’s right, space really is a scary place, he could find out how scary the hard way. Or maybe your leader…he seems like a hothead. We’ll probably send him your hand, maybe your head. We’ll have to start a betting pool on how little time it will take him to come running to avenge you without a plan. Galra are always easiest to handle when they’re furious and not thinking.”

She stopped walking and stood behind him. He heard the rustle of fabric as she smoothed the shirt she was wearing.

“Of course…we could also send him your hand right now, you don’t need two. A hand and an eye, I think. One to lure him out, the other so you can still see what they do to him when he gets here.”

“Why do you even want Sincline?” Lance was trying not to be baited, but she was pushing all the right buttons. “You already have better weapons, I’ve seen them. I almost got killed by one.”

“Our reasons,” Natille said simply. “Not for you to know.”

“So it’s just like your little Keith copy said,” Lance determined. “Punching space holes for quintessence wells.”

“You have very pretty blue eyes,” Natille said conversationally, folding her hands behind her back and looking out through the bars into the hall. She motioned to two nearby guards, who came over and opened the door. “Which one would you like me to send him?”

“Do we really have to be hasty about it?” Lance asked. “His birthday isn’t for more than a week.”

“Take his left eye.”

“Wait! Stop!” Lance tried to fight as he was grabbed, but he didn’t have a lot of strength. He was easily flipped over face down with a knee in his back, his arms held behind him. One of the guards grabbed his hair and lifted his head, and he saw the knife blade coming. “Stop! STOP! OKAY, STOP!”

“Wait.”

The knife stopped just as it was actually touching Lance’s eye. He thought he was going to hyperventilate, he could feel the pressure of the blade pressing in.

“I think he’s willing to cooperate,” Natille said sweetly. “You can let him go. But stay close, in case he changes his mind.”

The guards dropped him roughly. Lance shoved himself up and skittered backward until he hit the wall, his throat dry and his heart pounding. He had never been this scared in his life, and that included staring death in the face. Natille closed the gate behind the exiting guards and then turned to him, once again all sweetness and light.

Lance felt a slight pressure in his head and instinctively pushed back against it. But his reward was the throbbing pain in his temples, and he quickly gave in. He was just too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to go through much more.

The cell melted away, replaced once again by the false image of the Pandora. This time instead of the hall or personal quarters he was on a bridge similar to the Atlas, but there was no crew in sight. Instead Natille stood next to him. He was standing, unbound, in his blue Garrison uniform. The false Keith was also still there, sitting nonchalantly on top of one of the consoles in his own red Garrison jacket.

“Why is he still here? I know he’s not real.”

“It might still make you calmer,” Natille answered as the fake Keith got up and crossed the bridge, putting a supportive arm around Lance’s shoulders.

Lance hated that she was right. He hated that she was using Keith’s face, hated that she was picking through his head and creating this copy that reflected the other pilot right down to his mannerisms. It was infuriating that someone could take something out of his memory and use it like this.

“You don’t like it,” Natille guessed. Probably because he was scowling so hard he could feel his facial muscles locking up. “How about something a little earlier, then? I see you seem to have a thing for older men in black.”

The fake Keith shifted slightly, becoming taller and more muscled. A second later it was Shiro standing with an arm around him, his hair still all black and both arms intact. It was the Shiro Lance had been so bedazzled by as a young cadet…and perhaps maybe a tiny bit enamored with.

The way the arm was wrapped around him was too intimate for comfort, especially with Shiro’s smiling face. Lance still had a lot of jumbled feelings left over from his Garrison days that he wasn’t ready to confront, this was just too much.

“I swear to God, if you don’t knock this off I will turn this hallucination around and take us all home,” he hissed.

Natille’s little smile said she knew exactly what she was doing. And so did Lance. She was keeping him off balance, digging around for things she knew he wasn’t sure about and wasn’t comfortable with. The trouble was, there was just no way for him to counter any of that. Shiro kissed his temple before fading away, and Lance didn’t realize until the image was gone that he was fisting his hands so tightly he felt real pain. He didn’t doubt he was sitting in his cell with very real marks in his real palms. He kind of wanted to punch Natille.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he complained. “What am I supposed to do?’

Natille let him simmer a moment more before turning to him, holding out both hands palm-up. He hesitated before slowly resting his own over hers. Around them, the image of the ship faded away to leave them standing on nothing surrounded by space.

“The mind is an amazing thing, it records everything we see,” Natille said. “We can’t always access it ourselves, we’d probably go crazy if we actively remembered it all. But everything you’ve ever seen is in there, I just need you to relax and open up so I can look. Take a deep breath, don’t fight. This won’t be painful, it won’t be uncomfortable.”

Lance took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes. He still had his reservations, but he also had no doubts about what would be done to himself and the others if he didn’t cooperate. He knew Natille was right about Griffin being easy to kill and Keith being easy to lure out. It was for their sake, not so much his, that he made himself relax. He stopped fighting the cool feeling of someone else in his head, leaned into it instead of pulling away.

“I want you to think about the fight,” Natille instructed, her voice soft and even. “I want you to remember. You just survived an altercation within the quintessence field, in your Lion as part of Voltron. You’ve just left the field. You’ll only remember specific things, I need you to think about those. Everything else will be in the background.”

Lance took another breath, and thought about being in the quintessence field. He pictured it: the brightness of it, the strange energy that seemed to hum through Red. The desperation of the fight, a feeling of anger. He remembered the thrusters being fired, the feeling of rising almost as if coming to the surface of the sea.

He remembered Voltron kneeling at the edge of the open rift, his Lion shutting down as he climbed desperately out of the hatch. He remembered almost falling nearly the full height of Blue as he tried to slide down her side to the ground. He remembered the pain jolting up his knee as his boots hit the paving stones, the ache in his chest as he ran forward.

He remembered wrenching the helmet from the Black Paladin, his best friend, seeing him lying there lifeless from overexposure next to his wife…

…no, that wasn’t right. Lance knew it wasn’t right. He didn’t know what that was, but it wasn’t what he was looking for. He pushed it forcefully away and brought his mind back to the quintessence field again, this time intentionally remembering all the yelling and emotions. Allura creating the energy backfire, Keith ordering the retreat. There was no ground to stand in when they’d exited.

Lance remembered that moment. Sitting in Red, breathing a sigh of relief as the bright light of the quintessence field was replaced by a black satin blanket of stars. His attention was on his beating heart and the fact that he and his team had just survived, nothing else.

But this was what Natille wanted. The image froze around him as she took this information. He didn’t know how she copied it or stored it or whatever she had done, but as he looked at it now he knew how she would use it.

The position of the stars. They were going to pinpoint exactly where the Paladins had come out of the quintessence field, and that’s where they were going to go looking for Sincline.

The stars faded, and he was back in his cell.

“There,” Lance spat, feeling disgusted with himself. “Are you happy now?”

“Very.” Natille didn’t seem happy when she said it, she seemed distracted. “Hands.”

He obediently put his wrists together in front of him and she replaced the cuffs. Then she handed him the water bottle again and collected her bag. He didn’t really expect her to say anything else to him before she left and she didn’t, her quick steps almost a run as she took off after Acxa and the other druid.

Lance backed up against the wall, sliding down it to sit. He set the water bottle down next to him and stared at the far wall, wondering what the consequences would be for what he’d just done. If they found Sincline and somehow retrieved it, they would have a tool that let them directly access the quintessence field. He’d basically just sold out the entire universe for the immediate safety of his own friends and family.

And himself.

“You know, honestly? I would’ve broken sooner.” Griffin’s voice was surprisingly sympathetic. Lance dragged his gaze over to the bars, through them and to the cell across the way. Griffin was leaning against the bars of his own cell, looking at him thoughtfully. “You didn’t do half bad.”

“Yeah,” Lance muttered, pulling up his knees and letting his head fall forward against them. He fought not to cry, not to waste more precious water when he still had to recover. “Not half bad.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took so long to get this chapter out...I'm currently visiting a friend out of state and getting up to Halloween shenanigans, I haven't really had a lot of time to finish and edit. So I'm sorry if this chapter isn't as coherent as everyone would like. Thank you to everyone who let me know they're enjoying the story!

**_10,000 Years Ago_** :

The guardians called it the Nether, a sparkling expanse of liquid light that danced around the edges of the quintessence field. The mortals called it the Rift, the final expanse of being before physical form broke down and only pure energy could go further. It was the realm of the Formless, insatiable creatures the guardians existed to keep at bay in order to protect existence itself.

In theory, the universe should have been buffered against this realm by the Ether. The plane of eternal twilight that mortals called the Astral Plane was like the beach to the Nether’s sea, it protected reality from the wild tempest beyond. But the rift on Daibazaal acted almost like a well, cutting through the safety of land to the furious groundwater below.

Red was, to say the least, displeased. She curled her presence more tightly around Alfor, and if her current skin hadn’t been made of metal she would have arched her back and hissed.

_I don’t like this_ , she announced for the third time in as many doboshes. _This doesn’t seem right at all._

_Theoretically, Zarkon is right_ , Green answered. It was notable that she didn’t sound as certain as usual. _Opening the rift wider will flood the Lions with quintessence and give them enough power to finally close everything up for good._

_Theoretically_ , Blue repeated. _How about actually?_

_Actually, it sounds absolutely insane,_ Yellow responded. _Nobody needs to be a genius to figure that out._

_To be fair, we’ve never had to deal with the Nether from this side before. Literally anything could happen,_ Green agreed.

_Thank you both for instilling me with a healthy dose of terror,_ Blue said lightly. _I almost felt optimistic for a tick there._

Voltron—Red hated that name so much but now it had stuck—had just removed the protective dome from the rift created by the trans-reality comet. The bright light of the Nether leaked through, blinding and roiling and ominously threatening. Red had wanted to close this stupid hole in reality since the Lions had been finished and the Formless had started streaming through, but Zarkon hadn’t wanted to listen to reason.

Black was basically useless as far as being a leader lately, he could have nudged his Paladin in the right direction. But no, he wanted to see what would happen. Red had developed some suspicions about his real motives for this mission, his true intentions in finding the White One. Black was brave, strong, and would do anything he could for any one of them, but it was becoming apparent that he was also intrigued by power. He wanted it, and as long as his chosen avatar was pursuing it Black would not stop him.

Though to be fair, Red knew she could have pushed harder. But as time went on and their bond grew stronger she had come to adore Alfor just as much as Black adored Zarkon. As much as Blue adored Blaytz and Yellow adored Gyrgan and Green adored Trigal. And Alfor’s blind spot for his best friend’s bad decisions had been somewhat mirrored by her growing willingness to let Black get away with pretty much anything he did.

They were all at fault. Their bonds with these mortals were giving them _emotions_ , clouding their judgement to an extent. The longer they were bound to this physical world the more attached they got to it, and to the people in it.

“So how do we do this?” Gyrgan asked.

“We use the sword.” Alfor’s voice was firm and steady, but Red could feel his unease echo through her. His bayard activated the blade, and she felt the Red Lion reacting to his commands to plunge the sword into the rift opening.

To Red the sudden rush of quintessence was familiar, she knew its unfathomable power well. But the physical shells of the Lions, not to mention the physical bodies of the Paladins, were quickly overwhelmed by the sudden flood.

_I can’t dampen this much at once and keep everything moving,_ Red warned.

_Everyone just protect your Paladins and ignore everything else,_ Green advised. _It’s like a dam bursting, once the initial rush is over everything should even out._

_I hate to be_ that _guardian, but we’re sinking into the rift,_ Blue announced as she and Yellow began to be engulfed. _Wow, who would have thought that stabbing something you’re standing on was a bad idea._

Red concentrated on guiding the flow of quintessence around her hull, limiting what flowed through the Lion and into Alfor. He was Altean, yes, and an extremely gifted alchemist, but even he could be overexposed. She felt him briefly lose consciousness, but Green proved to be correct. As they were submerged in the Nether, the force of the flow diminished. Alfor began to stir.

_Hey, it’s my turn to be_ that _guardian,_ Yellow piped up. _There’s like, a thousand Formless swarming this way. I don’t want to say they want to painfully kill us, but they probably want to painfully kill us._

_Slightly inconvenient,_ Blue mused.

Red felt the vibration of doors opening ripple through Voltron as a whole and knew the others felt it too. Her sensors swept the area, picking up Zarkon outside of his Lion. Not just Zarkon, but he had Honerva with him. Now Red thought she knew why Black had been curiously quiet this whole time.

_What the quiznak is going on?_ She demanded angrily. _They can’t be out of the ships in here! Black, what are you doing!?_

_I didn’t realize they were actually going to leave the ship!_ Black defended. _I thought he was just going to expose her to quintessence from the cockpit!_

_Oh yeah, I didn’t know he was going to stick his whole head in the yelmor’s mouth, I thought it would just be an ear,_ Blue said sarcastically. _We’re all just filled with amazing ideas today!_

_Time’s up, those rift nasties are here!_ Green broke in. _Get your guard up!_

Red focused on Alfor, on guiding energy through the Red Lion to fufill his whims at the controls. The bright light of the Nether was soon eclipsed by a cloud of Formless, their very being eating into the surface of the ships as they swirled around Voltron in a tight caccoon. They were drawn to the vibrancy of the life tucked within the cockpits here, hungry for something that they had no access to here in the Rift.

She felt one breach the hull and make its way toward Alfor. Fear like nothing she’d ever felt before gripped her down to her core, and she threw every ounce of her being between him and it. The sting as it burrowed, as it tried to suck the life from her, turned her fear into anger. It was not the first Formless she had ever faced down and it certainly wouldn’t be the last; she pooled the energy from the surrounding Nether and ran it through the Red Lion’s hull like a shockwave, forcing all the attackers on it and in it away.

“Trigel, grab them!” Alfor ordered. Even as the Green Lion moved to scoop up the unmoving Zarkon and Honerva, he was preparing to flee. “Gyrgan, Blaytz, fire your thrusters! We must leave!”

Red continued to feed power to the lasers, which honestly did very little but temporarily thin the Formless down. They continued to reconvene and attack even as the Lions withdrew, and it was only once they passed through the Rift again and were safely back into solid reality that the attacks began to wane.

Voltron settled down to its knees as Trigel gently laid Zarkon and Honerva out on the ground. They were lifeless, overexposed. But, more curiously, Black wasn’t present either. If Red thought back, he also had played no part in their escape from the rift.

Alfor disembarked, and Red felt a spike of agony go through her as he approached his dear friend’s body.

She couldn’t handle this; she receded to the Ether, limping onto the astral plane and away from the flood of sadness that threatened to drown her if she stayed at her Paladin’s side. She took stock of herself there, of the blackened burns on her front paws and wounds that ran up her neck to her face. It was one thing to chase down a Formless at the edges of the quintessence field with a pride of other guardians at her back, but quite another to face one down while trying to protect something so fragile as a mortal’s essence.

It was there she found him, under a sea of diamonds and velvet. Constellations that didn’t exist in this reality twinkled overhead, the eternally twilight sky fading into vivid reds and purples at the far edge of the plane. Black was there, withdrawn and quiet. He knelt on two legs, in a form he had copied from his Paladin. They all appeared as something akin to Alteans in this form, though slightly different. Taller, more delicate, shorter ears and skin in vibrant colors. His long black hair was streaked with white—a new addition—his eyes glowing softly with the purple shine of his native quintessence.

Red shifted down as she approached, from four legs to two, reaching him in the form of a tall woman with golden brown skin and a veil of fire for hair. She stayed back some steps, cradling her burnt arms against her and feeling the sting of her wounded face. Still, she felt like she had gotten the better deal.

Black was cradling Zarkon, or at least what remained of his essence. Likely whatever he had been able to scrape away before the Formless had left the Black Paladin completely destroyed. He hugged the prone form with one arm, his other hand running across blackened stretches of decay, trying to slowly heal way the remnants of Rift infection.

“What are you going to do with him?” Red finally broke the silence. He no doubt had already noticed her arrival, she didn’t worry about startling him.

“I don’t know,” Black answered quietly. “But I’m not ready to let him go.”

Red moved closer, lowering herself down to kneel next to Black. She kept some distance between them, looking down at the ragged essence that lay before them. The Formless had taken their toll, parts of Zarkon were gone or shredded and the infection on what was left was bad. Red thought about the Formless that had made its way through the Red Lion’s hull, imagined Alfor laying at her feet like this. It left her breathless.

“It’s my fault,” Black admitted after a moment. “I knew he was getting obsessed with the power from the Rift but I didn’t stop it. I encouraged it. I thought that if the White One could harness all that power then so could I, we could be unstoppable. But I didn’t think he would do this.”

“Chasing power always has consequences,” Red said softly. “Mortals are enthralled by it for all the wrong reasons, you can’t let yourself be tempted for the wrong reasons as well. I know it’s not very reassuring, but he will be reborn once his essence is back in the planet’s quintessence pool.”

“He’s not really going to be reborn though,” Black frowned. “He’ll never be Zarkon again. He’ll be someone else, carrying a piece of Zarkon around.”

“Yes. That’s how mortals work,” Red agreed sadly. She got to her feet, feeling the pull of Alfor’s anguish and knowing she couldn’t hide here forever even if it did feel safer here. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Black said heavily, still not taking his eyes off the remaining traces of his Paladin. “So am I.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current Day_** :

The sky was a sea of diamond stars, shimmering in an eternal tide of twilight. The ground beneath his feet reflected their brilliance in its glass-like shine, both the glimmering gems and the rainbow shapes that swirled around them creating a dreamscape of color. Galaxies and nebulae that didn’t exist in this universe, their essences leaking through to this place between realities.

Keith stood in the middle of it all below an alien eclipse, noticing none of the beauty. This pocket of being that existed within the Black Lion was difficult to reach and he didn’t have a lot of time, sightseeing wasn’t on his agenda.

What he wanted was to recreate something he had done before, back when he had fought one of Shiro’s clones and then had to return to his team across galaxies at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. Shiro had been there to guide him then, he had been the one to tell Keith he could reach the other Paladins quickly but that first he had to see them.

He’d had nothing to focus on then except getting there, desperation had fueled his reaching mind. This was different, here on Earth he was surrounded by life and movement. Everything was connected in a complicated web of quintessence, every laugh and kiss and sob sent ripples through the threads that caused distraction.

Lance had been the first one he’d found back then, almost as soon as he’d reached out. But it was different now with all the white noise, and with Red being uncooperative. He needed her to respond and she wouldn’t, any bond the two of them had before was completely gone. It was becoming more and more apparent as the days passed and he continued to try that Red had only responded to him so easily six months ago because Lance had been in immediate danger, not because Keith had any power over her.

Keith didn’t believe her bond with Lance had been broken. He didn’t believe for a moment that Red would take a new Paladin as long as Lance was alive, whether he piloted her or not. They had paraded no less than thirty of the best Coalition pilots they could find under her nose and she didn’t respond to any of them, she wasn’t interested in a new Paladin. In fact, her only reaction to anyone besides Lance had been her violent opposition to Acxa.

Who _she_ had known meant harm to _her_ pilot.

Keith could almost see the ribbons of light that connected him to the others. Allura’s pink essence, Pidge’s green, Hunk’s yellow. Something curious he had noticed was that Allura had told them that the quintessence of the pilot was mirrored in the Lion, but Lance’s quintessence had never had a color. Arguably it could have been considered blue, but it wasn’t. It was the aqua color of quintessence in general, of the glow on their armor when powered up and the shine of everything in the Castle of Lions when Allura connected and got everything running.

He knew now that what she’d meant was that the traits at the person’s core being were reflected in those of the Lion, not necessarily the color they presented. But he was really wishing Lance presented as a true blue, or even red, because it made him even harder to trace that he wasn’t distinct from everything else. Any tracks he might have left behind were lost in the noise.

Keith felt rather than saw the presence around him starting to swirl into a physical shape, he was too busy tryng to find some way of making use of what he had access to here. He kept going even as he felt the nudge on his back, tracing a thread he thought might have promise only to lose it a moment later.

The nudge came again, this time harder. Keith knew the Black Lion could shove him out of this plane at any point, that he was only here with his Lion’s permission. The Lions didn’t speak in words, more like ideas, but he understood that the longer he was here the more likely something could happen that might stop him from waking up. This place was dangerous for the living, and he pushed his luck being here.

Keith let go of the thread and turned to look upward, at the swirling tide of purple starlight made solid. He was a constellation come to life, the lion-like head and body, the feathered wings, and the scaled underbelly seeming to be a crystalline figure filled with a stellar twinkle. Black lowered himself down to lie facing Keith, his huge front paws blocking him in so he couldn’t wander. He lowered his head, nuzzling him lightly, and Keith let himself fall forward to lean against the glittering snout.

He felt desolate and useless, and he knew Black could feel his unhappiness. It grew more severe with every day, and nothing was helping.

Keith didn’t fight as he felt Black easing him back out into the world of the living, as he felt himself go from leaning to lying on his back. He found himself once again draped across his bed in his quarters on the Atlas, staring up at the plain white ceiling.

He got to his feet and left his quarters, going to the shared men’s bathroom a few doors down. It was tempting to step under one of the showers to try and wake himself up completely, but instead he went to the sink and splashed water on his face. The longer he spent entwined that deeply with Black, the more groggy he was when he came back.

Keith would never tell anyone for fear of sounding crazy, but he knew he sometimes encountered whatever sentience resided in the Black Lion. But there were some things that were simply too big for the human—or Galra—brain to comprehend, and once he was back in his physical body all that remained were impressions. Kindness, comfort, sympathy. Everything else about Black was just a dreamlike feeling of having met. Whatever Black was, his kind and mortals existed in far different worlds and were never really meant to interact.

He turned off the water and looked up at the mirror, turning a critical gaze on the reflection there. Amethyst pupils stared back at him, framed in yellow eyes. Strands of deep wine were visible at his neck, no longer streaked through but now completely overtaking the black on the underside of its length. His face was marked vividly now, two deep purple stripes that ran down over his jaw, along his neck to disappear under his collar.

There were other marks, too, ones that stayed hidden. Three small, horizontal stripes on each bicep, the same on each calf. He hadn’t gone looking for any others, he really didn’t want to know. His skin was otherwise still pale, but it was beginning to take on a slightly more pinkish tone. Not quite noticable yet but that would change with time.

Keith stared at the reflection, at the half-Galra looking back at him, taking in the changes that had occurred over the last four days. He had known this would happen when he’d started but he hadn’t cared, and to be honest he still didn’t care now. These features had always been here, hidden under human colors, he had come to accept it.

_“So what about you?”_

Lance had been laying in the Castle training room when Keith had asked him that. At the time Keith had been irritated, he wanted to use the room to actually train and didn’t see why Lance couldn’t lounge somewhere else.

_“Everybody else has had something to say. When are you going to start on me? Or are you just waiting for the worst possible time as always?”_

In hindsight, he now realized he’d probably come in while Lance was doing stretches. But as Lance had always done when Keith came along, he had given up the space for him to use. Pretending the whole time he was just leaving because he was annoyed, of course.

_“I didn’t think I had anything scheduled for today,” Lance answered, getting to his feet. He was wearing his under-armor but not the armor itself, which only served to make him look more like he was doing nothing in here. “Why, what am I late on? That you’re short? That you need a haircut? That you still can’t pronounce “statistically?” Help me out here.”_

_“I don’t believe for a second that you of all people don’t have something to say after finding out I’m Galra.”_

_“Okay, first of all? I have a life outside of you, Keith,” Lance answered derisively, picking up the water bottle he’d been carrying with him. “I can’t spend every minute of every day counting your flaws, I wouldn’t get anything else done.”_

_“Even Allura is coming at me and she actually knows how to be diplomatic,” Keith seethed. “You’re telling me you—_ you _—aren’t just waiting to kick me too?”_

_“Ooh, this is really eating you, isn’t it?” Lance asked with relish. “Man, it must suck finding out you’re a complete outsider, huh? Can’t relate. And I don’t know why you’re taking your problem out on me when I’ve been minding my own business, but back off.”_

_Lance stopped as he was passing Keith, leaning in close. Against his will, Keith’s stomach fluttered in that annoying way it sometimes did when Lance was near. It was the dumbest crush in the history of the universe and he hated having it, he really needed to get rid of it._

_“Not all of them are bad, there are some cool Galra out there,” Lance said flatly. “Ulaz was a Galra. Kolivan? Now that dude’s a Galra. You’re three feet tall with a bad emo haircut. You could only dream of being part of that club, Earth Boy. Maybe someday, with a miracle, but for now all you are to me is the same walking anger management problem you’ve always been. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put your helmet on a high shelf and watch you get pissed that you can’t reach it.”_

The reflection smiled, ever so slightly. Lance really had minded his own business when Keith’s heritage had come out, but Keith had still gone at him as soon as he’d had the chance. He knew why, even if he hadn’t been able to say it at the time. It had been because he was scared, he and Lance had been slowly getting along more and finding more common ground and Keith had expected to lose that. He had been sure he was going to lose the first person he’d wanted to be real friends with and he had done what he always did, tried to push Lance away before Lance had a chance to hurt him first.

Which hadn’t happened. The exchange wasn’t the sweetest of words, but he had taken Lance’s meaning. Keith was still the same as he’d always been, Lance didn’t think of him any differently. It had been what he needed to hear, and it had helped him through the trying time more than he could say.

Keith reached up to push his hair back, giving himself a clear view of his full face. The eyes that looked back at him, the stripes across his cheeks, the maroon at his neck, they were his mother’s eyes and his mother’s marks and his mother’s hair. He had learned to not be ashamed of his blood, and in the last few days he’d decided not to be ashamed if it showed.

He dried his face with some paper towels and went back to his room, moving to stand in front of the various sheets of paper taped to one wall. Quadrant maps, radio frequency lists, information they had picked up from Lotor while he was pretending they were all friends. It was five days now. The day after Lance and Griffin disappeared an SOS signal had been picked up by a Coalition scout ship, but the blast was so brief it could only be traced back to a full quadrant of space. There was no way to pinpoint, and Keith knew that if they had somehow escaped they would have found a way to inform Earth by now.

Four days had passed without any other signals, without any other signs. No contact from Acxa or the Galra trying to lure them into a trap exchange, no attack now that they were down two pilots. No noise on the usual underground gossip line. Keith was a soldier, he knew what that meant. If they were going to be used, they would have been used by now. The most probable outcome was that they had been taken to be tortured for information, and that they were now dead.

The most probable outcome, but not necessarily the final one. Keith had never been an optimist, but he knew Lance. Everyone tended to underestimate him, to call him the goofball and forget his skill as a soldier in favor of rolling their eyes at his showboating. But there was a reason Keith had often trusted Lance to lead when he couldn’t. The guy was smart, intuitive, and absolutely a fighter.

What pressed Keith down right now was knowing that Lance was out there without backup and would have to survive with only Griffin. It was knowing he had to turn control of this over to the Garrison, because he was sitting here on house arrest with no way to get this stupid monitor off. Keith had never trusted the Garrison to do the Paladins’ job and he didn’t trust them to do it now, but everyone was keeping his hands tied.

Shiro wouldn’t let him loose. Kolivan and his mother wouldn’t listen. His whole team went along with orders from Earth-bound officers and looked at him like he was out of control.

Keith knew everyone else thought Lance was dead, because nobody had come to bother him in two days. He wasn’t asked to run drills, he wasn’t asked to work in his office. He was left here, in his quarters on the Atlas, available to be called to lead if there was an attack but otherwise serving his house arrest. Tucked away here quietly, where he wouldn’t run off and do anything risky that would disturb the illusion that the Lions belonged to the military of Earth.

It was, to say the least, stressful.

There was a knock at his door. Keith took a deep breath and started combing his hair down with his fingers to cover his face. He stopped abruptly, annoyed that he was acting ashamed.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” Pidge’s voice called, muffled by the door. “I’m just dropping off the recordings you wanted.”

“Recordings?” _Recordings_. He had asked her to pull everything she could out of the Red Lion’s data backup, all the way back to the fight with the Altean mech. “Right. Thanks.”

He opened the door and found Pidge wasn’t alone. She stood there with Hunk behind her, both of them staring at him and taking in the changes. He let them, staring right back for a good thirty seconds before he finally raised an eyebrow.

“You brought me recordings?” He prompted.

“Uh, right. Here, there’s about a year’s worth of video on here,” Pidge looked down at her hands instead, offering him the drive. “I just kept copying until I ran out of stuff to download.”

“Video? It’s not just weird data readings?”

“The visual is always on when the Lions are active, for our video feeds,” Pidge told him. “Even when we turn off our communications. It spools for about a year then starts overwriting. Probably in case the pilot’s incapacitated and someone needs to find out what happened.”

Keith turned the little drive over in his fingers, a cloud of dread settling over him. He hadn’t expected video, he had been expecting to spend hours staring at data he didn’t understand while trying to put words to unformed suspicions.

“Do you want to watch it alone?” Hunk’s voice was concerned and Keith knew why. He'd fallen off the face of the Earth for two days, and now they were seeing him like this.

It was misplaced. Keith had not been laying around wallowing in self pity and trying to numb himself. He had accepted that he’d developed a terrible habit, and was trying to use it to their advantage. But he didn’t blame Hunk for thinking otherwise, after their last private conversation outside of the Garrison.

“No,” he said honestly, taking a step back to give them room to enter. “I don’t. And he’s your friend too.”

They came in and Hunk shut the door. Keith pulled the messy sheet off the bed as he passed and balled it up, shoving it into the drawer out of the way on his way to the viewscreen on the wall to give them a clear space to sit. He plugged the little drive in and booted it up.

“What are we looking for?” Pidge wondered. “Is there something here you think will help?”

“I don’t know,” Keith admitted. “I had Allura try to reach Lance through Blue, in case there might be some traces of their bond left. She couldn’t find anything. I guess my hope is to find out what was really going on with him while he was in Red. She won’t respond to me anymore, but maybe she’ll still respond to him.”

“He’s not her pilot anymore though,” Hunk pointed out.

“Did _she_ decide that?” Keith asked, pulling up a list of files on the drive. “Or did we?”

“You think she didn’t? You think that’s why Red won’t even put her barrier down for anybody we’ve brought to see her?” Hunk asked. He was beginning to sound hopeful. “Like, she’s just chilling here waiting for Lance to get done messing with the MFEs and come back? You think he’s still alive and she knows?”

“If that’s the case, why didn’t she save him from getting taken in the first place?” Pidge asked carefully. Keith could tell she also wanted to hope, but she didn't want to have those hopes crushed. “She’s saved Keith plenty of times.”

“You’ve never had to deal with Red, you don’t understand,” Keith shook his head, looking back at the list of files. “She’s not called unstable or temperamental as a joke. You scorn her and she’ll scorn you right back, and Lance basically broke up with her to go play with jet planes. I don’t think she’s going to go to him until _he_ calls _her._ ”

He picked the most recent file and started it playing. The image showed Red booting up and Lance coming into the cockpit, still in his civilian clothes. This looked like the day he’d spoken to Keith and made his transfer permanent.

_“You’re a good girl,”_ Lance’s voice filtered from the speakers as his image sat in Red’s pilot seat, much gentler than the way he usually spoke. _“The best girl. I know you have a temper and some people say you’re not reliable, but that’s not true. You’re not just some mindless robot, are you? You have standards. And when people are being dumb and not meeting your standards, they need to be told they’re dumb. I get you.”_

Lance smiled, and it was painful to watch. It was a soft smile, the one Keith had seen aimed at Allura more than a few times, even though she had mostly ignored it until very recently. It was that same smile Lance had given Keith after they’d stopped Sendak from taking the Castle of Lions.

_“They’ll get you a new pilot. Not just whatever human is available, either. If nobody here is good enough they’ll put out a call, and you? You’re amazing. Pilots from all over the universe will be falling all over themselves just to get a look at you.”_

He spoke to Red almost like a man in love, it was obvious from his voice and posture and tone. The way he ran his fingers over the controls and smiled, it all screamed that she meant the world to him. And it made Keith’s heart hurt, because he realized now that he had seen Lance like that once before only with different words.

_I think he’s like, the future._

Keith hit the stop button. Lance’s voice cut off, leaving the room in silence. He avoided looking at Hunk or Pidge, selecting an older file. This time the image came up of Lance in his armor, going about the normal motions of piloting his Lion. Keith could hear his own voice coming over the comm, letting them know the simulation was starting.

Lance did fine for a while. There was nothing out of the ordinary as he joked, bragged, and occasionally showed off. Keith advanced the video and it was at about the two-hour mark when he stopped moving so much, eventually leaning back in his seat and slouching down a little. His face was set in a frown, his breathing was slow and deliberate as if he was having trouble.

A trickle of blood ran down his lip from his nose. He cursed softly and slapped his visual feed off under the excuse of wanting to clear his screen for the simulation, unaware that the video was still going by default. He struggled for another few moments, occasionally fanning himself with one hand, then pulled off his helmet and panted as if it had been smothering him.

He clearly meant to hang it off one of the levers, but halfway through the motion he stopped. The helmet fell to the floor from limp fingers as Lance stared ahead, slightly above the point of his usual field of vision. He didn’t blink, his eyes lost focus. He stayed that way for a long moment, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell forward, only held in place by his new harness.

The seizure that followed was dramatic. It was painful to watch. Keith didn’t look away, but he heard Pidge let out a small cry and then muffle her voice in a pillow. The front of Lance’s armor spattered with small blood droplets, some from his nose but some also visible from his lip where he had bitten it. The light in the cockpit shifted as Red went into autopilot mode and started to land, and he could hear himself on the comm asking if everything was all right.

Keith was so calm about it. They all were, over in their own Lions with no visual. No idea this was going on right in front of them. Annoyed that he wasn’t answering, yet again, when he knew they worried when he went quiet and had to land.

It lasted a bit less than a minute by Keith’s count, Lance had stopped spasming and was slowly regaining consciousness by the time Red’s feeds said she had landed. He heard himself say he was coming down as well but Lance didn’t seem to hear him, he looked around the cockpit with visible confusion and something akin to sleepiness.

He stayed in his seat for another minute or so, gathering himself, but then he must have seen that Black had landed nearby. Lance had the presence of mind to unclip part of his arm armor and use the black fabric of his under-armor to wipe away the blood from his chest and face. Everything was back in place and he was standing on unsteady legs when Keith saw himself appear in the cockpit doorway.

This was one of the times Keith had actively helped Lance out of Red. Grimly, Keith stopped the video and switched to another. He went through them, one by one, until he’d watched maybe ten.

Lance only had visible seizures in two. In the rest, in the rest he seemed to have intense head pain that affected his vision and made him nauseous. He left the Lion under his own power but Keith knew better than to assume everything was fine; most of these would likely be days when the seizure came later, many causing him to the hospital and spend a night or longer admitted.

He paused here to collect himself before continuing. It was all hard to watch, especially knowing it had been happening literally right under their noses. He gave Hunk and Pidge the option of leaving but they were adamant about remaining and seeing this through.

When they were ready, Keith continued on. He went through video after video, going back further and further, looking for any signs that Red had actively rejected Lance. There were a few times he got in the cockpit and she simply wouldn’t start, but those were days when he already looked exhausted upon arrival. For the most part, there was no sign that his bond with the Red Lion was suffering quite as much as he was.

“That’s like, his fourth seizure in a row,” Hunk spoke up as one of the videos ended and Keith prepared to move on to the next. “They’re getting more frequent.”

“I know. He was in there four or five times a week,” Keith reminded him. He still felt guilty for having him up in that Lion.

“No, I mean we’re going back, and the seizures are getting more frequent,” Hunk elaborated. He gently pushed Pidge up from where she was leaning on him and came over to the screen. “This one is what? Ten minutes in?”

“Ten minutes, fourteen seconds,” Keith checked the time stamp.

“Those first ones we watched, Lance was flying for an hour or two before anything hit, and he walked away from most of them. These earlier ones hit him fast and hit him hard. I mean, maybe I’m a little bit crazy, but it looks like he was getting better.”

“You call seizing up and bleeding on your armor “better?” Pidge asked in disbelief.

“No, I think Hunk might be on to something,” Keith said thoughtfully. “You can see he was in a lot of really bad pain, of course he’s not going to think he’s getting better. But when you lay everything out in a timeline, it looks like a long, painful recovery.”

“In that case, I have questions,” Pidge frowned. “First, if he was getting better as time went on, was he getting better in spite of being in Red so often or because of it?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said honestly. “But he’s been getting all kinds of scans, maybe you should hack his records so we can have someone take a look.”

“I think I can do that,” Pidge nodded. “Now, second question. What caused his injury in the first place?”

“The fight with the Altean mech,” Keith answered. “He got hurt in that rover explosion, but he was still up and moving. He flew with us just fine until that fight, he was even still talking to me until just before that thing exploded.”

Keith turned back to the viewscreen, scrolling past the other more recent entries until he got to the ones for the day of the Last Stand. He intentionally glossed over the entry following the rover attack, knowing there was no one in the cockpit until she’d saved Lance, and skipped past their captivity by Sendak. He found what he was looking for, bringing up the video and advancing it through most of the fight with Sendak’s ships and the zaiforge cannons. Even as the images zipped by they could see that Lance was about as healthy as he could have been after a vehicle accident.

During the final showdown with the mech, as Lance and Keith had both used their bayards to activate the wings, there was a bright flash in Red’s cockpit. From the grimace on Lance’s face it had hurt, but he was more intent on his job than himself. Keith hadn’t noticed any such issue in his own Lion, and by now Red had probably repaired herself as the Lions always did, so Keith doubted there was any information to be found from inspecting the bayard port.

The Lions were down, Lance’s cockpit was dimmed. Keith stopped advancing the video when he saw the lights come back up slightly and Lance shaking off the effects of the battle and grimly maneuvering Red into position.

_“Dying a virgin,”_ Lance mused out loud. _“I honestly didn’t see that coming.”_

“We all saw that coming in your case, Lance,” Keith heard Pidge mutter. He knew this wasn’t the time for wise cracks, but he smiled slightly in spite of himself.  He heard his own voice saying it was an honor flying with everyone, and telling everyone to give it all they had.

_“You know what’s not fair, Red?_ ” Lance sounded like he was starting to breathe heavily. _“Keith’s probably not dying a virgin. Hunk definitely isn’t, he had a girlfriend in third year and I heard all the details. From her, not him…that man’s a legend. But I’m over—”_

Keith had been lowering himself into his chair, but then launched himself back out of it and stopped the video. He looked back at the other two. Hunk’s eyes were the size of dinner plates.

“Congratulations,” Keith said awkwardly. “We’re just going to pretend he didn’t say any of that.”

“Oh please, it was Cheryl Lambert,” Pidge snorted. “She told literally everyone, not just Lance.”

“She didn’t!” Hunk was appalled.

“She did. And if Keith’s ever done anything more than hold someone’s hand while wondering what base it was I'll eat a live grasshopper.”

“You know what? I kissed someone just last week,” Keith shot back waving at them both dismissively as he turned back to the screen. “So I hope they have grasshoppers in the mess hall. Can we not talk about this right now? We’re kind of in the middle of something.”

He advanced a little further, past that embarrassing bit of monologue, and started the video again at a point where Lance was leaning back in his seat and breathing slower as if it took more effort than normal.

_“That’s okay though, it just means I’ll get into heaven easier, you know? I mean, I’m a tease, but it doesn’t count if you don’t follow through on anything, right?”_ Lance reached over and hit something on his console. _“Hey. I’ve been meaning to tell you…you should smile more. You have a really nice smile.”_

“Who’s he talking to?” Hunk frowned. Keith had a strong urge to stop the video again and advance through, but he knew Hunk and Pidge would just go pull the original files if he fed their curiosity that way. He remained silent instead.

_“It’s a little bit late for that._ ” He heard his own voice, strained and distracted. Keith hadn’t wanted to speak at all at the time, the temptation to just ignore everyone or shut down his communications had been strong. But he’d also believed he was going to die, and he’d wanted Lance’s face on his viewscreen to be the last thing he saw before he did.

_“We’re not dead yet, babe. Soon, yeah, but not yet.”_

Keith could feel the others looking at him as they thought about that day and didn’t remember hearing any of this conversation, realization creeping in that they were now listening to the a private exchange between two teammates. The kind of private exchange that happened a few moments before people expected to die, when certain things were said that either slipped out in delirium or weren’t remembered later. Like the quiet song Lance began singing to himself, closing his eyes and slouching further in his seat.

“What’s he singing?” Pidge asked. Hunk listened for a moment.

“That’s Benny More,” he answered. “Cuban singer from way, way back. The song is Que Te Hace Pensar or something like that, it’s one of Lance’s favorites. It’s a really old love song.”

Keith refused to turn around to look at them. He watched as Lance stopped singing and started to hum to himself, and as he went quiet and concentrated. He saw Lance’s eyes snap open a few moments later, remembered a similar feeling of being cut off suddenly by Black. Lance’s cockpit lights began to shift as Red took over, just as the other Lions had.

One thing was missing, lost when sound had been cut to preserve power for the particle barriers. Keith remembered his words vividly, half-shouted over the private line.

_Lance, fall back! Just drop your shield and go, Red’s fast enough to make it!_

Unheard and unacted upon. And nobody ever needed to find out those words were spoken besides Keith.

Lance’s eyes stared ahead, wide and terrified as it sank in that he was about to die. His hands tightened on his controls and he tensed in preparation, and then there was a flash of light. Something flickered across his face, a shadow Keith knew perfectly well was him moving the Black Lion in an attempt to help protect the much smaller Red from the worst of the blast. Then the screen went black.

“I guess he was just hurt in the explosion,” Hunk said after a moment. His face was a bit pale and Keith didn’t blame him, seeing the terror on a teammates face from that day, it definitely had an affect. “It looked like there was a problem with his bayard port, maybe the energy from that thing going off just overloaded his Lion.”

_“Oh. OH! We’re on! And we’re still falling! Shit! No! Stop! Not good, not good!”_

All three Paladins jumped and swiveled back toward the viewscreen, to the video they had mistakenly thought was over. Lance’s panicked face was visible again, once again surrounded by the red lights of the Red Lion’s overlays and controls. Although the image was stationary it was easy to tell the situation was rocky from how he winced and bounced in the aftermath of the mech explosion.

The protective screen of Lance’s helmet was spattered with blood, complicating his view, so he ripped it off his head and threw it behind him into the cockpit. His nose was bleeding and there was some blood on his neck under his ears, and his hair was sticking up all over the place from the sweat of the recent battle.

_“Three minutes to impact,”_ Lance was saying out loud, looking wildly at his screens and hitting controls to run his sensors. _“Okay, calm down, think. Uhhhh…okay. OKAY. Everyone’s trajectories aren’t steep, but they’re gonna hit hard. Nobody’s comms are up, that’s not good.”_

Lance was in full pilot mode, the most serious Keith had ever seen him. His eyes weren’t completely focused, he was definitely still hurting badly, but he was shoving it aside in the precariousness of the moment.

_“No way we’re gonna reach any of them, baby girl. Dammit!”_ he hissed. _“Sand…water…trees. Let’s hope those landings are soft enough for them to survive. Oh! We have a thruster up! Thank you thank you thank you, I may not die today! Hold on…where’s Keith?”_

Lance squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before reopening them again, trying to get them to focus. His gaze darted across his feeds until he found the one tracking the Black Lion. Keith knew that at this point he himself had already been unconscious and that Black had been plummeting toward the ground head on. It was easy to tell the exact moment Lance saw this, his expression changing from befuddled and somber to panicked.

_“No no no, KEITH! Red, baby, I know you’re tired right now but daddy really needs you to focus!”_

Lance gripped his controls tightly, eyes closed, trying to force Red to charge enough to change the direction of her fall. He couldn’t do it, they could all see that, and as the time remaining to impacts ticked down from two minutes to one, he visibly grew more and more frustrated.

_“Come on…come on,”_ Lance whispered, opening his eyes again and gritting his teeth. _“COMEON!”_

His voice was sharp, angry. Whether at himself or at Red was impossible to tell, but something happened then that made it cease to matter. Red’s cockpit suddenly lit up completely, all systems coming online as she got a sudden burst of charge. Lance shifted the controls, probably at this point changing Red’s direction to intercept the Black Lion. He was intent on his goal, completely wrapped up in what he was doing, even as his nose started to bleed again.

The image jolted as Black hit, breaking Lance out of his zone. Red’s cockpit lights went out and her overlays started to flicker off, her temporary burst dying down. Lance’s grip on the controls loosened, he sank forward against his harness. His eyes were vacant, staring straight ahead in the first signs of what was likely about to be his very first seizure.

The video feed went blessedly dead just before the final impact that would throw Lance out of his harness and into his console. Keith stared at the screen as it went back to the default file list, white letters on a blue background. The whole room was silent, until Hunk finally braved speaking.

“Did…you guys just see what I saw?” He asked uncertainly.

Keith didn’t answer. He became aware that his mouth was open and closed it as he went back and played the video again. He advanced it forward to just before Red’s burst of power and let it play for a minute, but the half of a second he knew Hunk was talking about flashed by so fast he had to rewind it again. He stood by the screen, ready, and quickly paused the video in the instant after Red’s cockpit lit back up fully.

Lance was front and center in the image, as he had been the whole time. His eyes were momentarily focused but they held a strange glimmer, almost as if they were glowing. A halo of that aqua color Keith had come to identify with quintessence had settled around his fingers, spilling down the controls almost as forcing power into the Red Lion themselves. But the most jarring part of the entire image wasn’t the weird glow or the halo of quintessence.

It was the half moon-shaped markings under Lance's eyes, shining a scarlet red.

* * * * * * * * * *

Green landed on the side of the moonlit cliff, her claws digging into the stone and letting her perch on the edge of the opening made by Blue during the Paladins’ initial escape from Earth. Once she was settled her speeder port opened and two armored bodies dropped out into the cavern below. Keith hit his boosters to slow down just before he hit the floor, with Pidge hot on his heels.

“Set up the flares,” Keith ordered, opening the pack he carried and digging out the digital camera. “Then run a scan.”

Pidge did as she was told, lighting flares and dropping them around the cavern at intervals until every nook and cranny was filled with flickering light. Keith set up the tripod from his the bag he carried and settled the camera on it as Pidge punched a few buttons on her wrist screen and began scanning the lion engravings on the walls.

“So how long do you think it’ll be before Shiro realizes Hunk has your ankle monitor?” She asked. “He’s not stupid.”

“Doesn’t matter, it was long enough for me to get off the base,” Keith answered. He followed behind Pidge, taking pictures of the glyphs after she finished scanning them. “So what do you think? Knowing what we know now, do these look Altean?”

“They glowed like they were Altean,” Pidge mused. “When we first came and got Blue. And we know that no Lion carved these, they were definitely made by humanoid hands. And since we know now that the Lions were built by Alfor and sent away by him, I’m going to bet money that yeah, they’re Altean.”

“I asked Coran once who piloted the Blue Lion to Earth,” Keith recalled, carefully taking a third panorama shot. “Back when I was first suspecting I might be part Galra. Looking back now, I realize he avoided the question and never told me who did.”

“But if the pilot was Altean, and their ride was locked in a cavern for ten thousand years, then there are likely people on Earth who are of Altean descent,” Pidge finished. “People like Lance.”

Keith was no stranger to these glyphs, or to researching them. He had once spent a year of his life deciphering their meaning and had managed to discern that they pinpointed a specific place and point in time. All of his experience in space had only given him more information to draw on, and coupled with Pidge’s genius he knew they would damn well get this sorted out fast.

“Do you think Allura knows?” Pidge wondered as they worked their way back around to where they’d started. “That Lance might be part Altean?”

“There’s no “might,” you saw the video,” Keith answered. “We replayed it hundreds of times, it’s fact. Lance supercharged that Lion just long enough to keep me from dying. He lit up like a Christmas tree for a second and we both know he probably had a seizure right after. He’s got Altean in him, and saving me is what broke his brain. I just want proof before I talk to Allura and Coran. I think they know who piloted Blue here, but I don’t think they know about Lance.”

He finished photographing all of the glyphs on the walls and moved to the ones carved into the floor where Blue had been seated. Halfway across the length of the cavern he caught sight of something metal glinting in the light. It was a pair of glasses, covered in dirt and debris from their exit. Possibly a spare pair of Pidge’s, dropped during their discovery of the Blue Lion.

Keith shoved them into his pack to look at later and continued taking his pictures. They moved quickly and efficiently, gathering samples from the walls and floor and clear images and scans of everything they could, aiming to finish and return before anyone knew they were gone. When they finished with the cavern they started down a nearby tunnel to vary their samples.

Pidge wandered ahead, her scanners working much faster than Keith’s camera. He began picking and choosing among the glyphs, only stopping to take pictures of what he thought might be important. They reached a dead end and turned around, heading back to the cavern, when something stopped him.

“Do you feel that?” He asked.

Pidge paused, turning on her light and sweeping the narrow tunnel. She was quiet for a moment, then shook her head.

“No, nothing. Why, what’s there?”

“I don’t know,” Keith admitted. “It feels sort of like the energy that pulled me toward Blue, but weaker. I think it’s on the other side of this wall.”

He stepped back so Pidge could shine her light. The dead end proved to be caused by a cave in of some sort, probably many years before they’d ever ventured in here. He could see a space at the top where it wasn’t filled in completely.

“I think we can get through there,” Pidge spoke his thoughts out loud. “It might be a tight squeeze though, and we don’t know how far it goes. Should we give it a shot? My scanner is definitely picking up something in there. The reading is kind of similar to a Balmera crystal.”

“I’m not going to make you risk it,” Keith answered, taking off the messenger bag he carried and shoving the camera into it. “You can wait here if you want, it’s fine.”

“No, if there’s something there I want to see!” Pidge insisted. “Especially if it’s actively giving off an energy signature. It may even be something to help Lance somehow, and if it caves in any more we’ll just have to call Green to dig us out.”

Keith didn’t point out to Pidge that if it caved in further they might be dead. He knew how dangerous these cliff caves were, he’d hurt himself pretty badly and almost died on more than one occasion in his inexperienced explorations. Pidge wasn’t dumb, she knew the risks. He wasn’t going to make her go, but he also wasn’t going to deny her the chance.

They left their bags and climbed up to the top of the cave in, squeezing carefully into the narrow passage that waited. It was definitely a tight fit for about three yards, but then dipped down to give more breathing room in an area that hadn’t caved in so badly. From there it was a steady angle of debris, and after a few minutes of crawling they were eventually able to get back to their feet.

The tunnel led them deeper into the cliff side than Keith had ever been, the air warm and stagnant and making him glad he could close his helmet. It ended abruptly in another small cavern, this one so small it was easily lit by the lights on their helmets. It was only about twenty feet in diameter, the ground made of earth rather than rock.

“Is that what I think it is?” Pidge asked, taking a few steps forward into the cavern. Her light swept the stone in the middle, standing upright with carvings marked into it. Keith didn’t need to get much closer to be able to tell what it was.

“It’s a grave,” he answered, picking his way around the edge of the space. He stopped when he accidentally kicked something that had likely been laid on the small grave site and shifted with Blue’s exit. “Pidge! Light!”

He leaned down and scooped up the helmet. It was an old-style Paladin’s helmet with a gold emblem in the front, the pink color of its dome as vibrant as ever even after ten thousand years.


	16. Chapter 16

James had been an active wartime soldier for years now, ever since Sendak's initial invasion when all the seasoned pilots were killed in the first wave of fighting. He could admit that he had still technically been a child when he’d started, barely past eighteen and just graduating. He had seen a lot of terrible things that war had to offer as he’d watched his planet get destroyed and his people taken for slavery.

Seeing a captured soldier tortured by the enemy, however, was new and disturbing.

It was very different from what he’d been taught to expect from movies and books. The Galra here weren’t strapping anyone to chairs and pulling out fingernails, or waterboarding or using electrocution. But what was going on was just as upsetting.

Lance was unconscious in his cell right now, James could see him lying face down where he’d fallen about an hour ago. The Alteans who had been dealing with him hadn’t bothered to check on him or see what his state was, they’d just left him lying there when they realized they couldn’t wake him up. There was some blood pooled under his face, from the nosebleed that had come right before the seizure he’d gone into, and some leaking through the hasty bandage on his left wrist.

James did not envy Lance for being their object of interest. Since they’d arrived their captors had not let him sleep for more than five minutes at a time, which was the amount of time it took for a shift change to occur and for fresh guards to keep him from resting. They rationed him severely on food and water, and those creepy Altean bitches came down several times a day to try and pick his brain. It had been two days since he’d finally caved and given them whatever they were looking for, but they hadn’t eased up on him.

Today had been a horror show. This “Sincline” they were looking for couldn’t be found with just what Lance had given and they were looking for more information, but he seemed to have toughened up since he’d broken. That aqua-haired Altean, Natille, had kept up her threats to send his body parts back to Kogane on Earth, but he wasn’t shaken this time.

When she had two guards come in to make good on her threat to cut off his hand, Lance didn’t blink first. James wasn’t sure he’d ever forget the scream that had echoed through the holding cells as one of the Galra guards pressed what looked like a hunting knife through Lance’s arm, or the agonized cries when they started to saw through bone.

Or the horrified expression on Natille’s face when she realized just how badly she’d messed up.

She’d stopped them real quick once the blood started flowing, which told James she wasn’t actually supposed to hurt McClain. The speed with which she’d gotten a medic down to the holding cells and gotten his wrist stitched and bandaged reinforced that theory, which was very important information to have. What James needed to know now was _who_ wanted Lance not only alive, but in one piece.

The slice was pretty bad, there was a lot of blood from it before it was patched up, but from the way Lance hugged his hand to his chest afterward James could see he still had movement in all of his fingers. Natille and another Altean had still tried to pry some information out of his brain now that he was weakened, but Lance didn’t seem to be done fighting on the psychic front either.

Whatever they did, they pushed him so hard he finally broke while pushing back. First his expression had gone completely vacant, that same empty stare James had seen on him when he’d gone with Veronica to get him out of the Red Lion’s cockpit six months ago. The seizure had come a minute later, and had lasted about a minute or so.

After that, Lance was out. Too long without sleep, not enough water, bleeding when he was already dehydrated, the injury and seizure, it was all too much for him to stay conscious. He was face down and lights out, and nothing they could do could wake him up.

James could see from here that he was breathing, at least.  He had to admit that it was kind of impressive how much of a fight Lance put up against these people, and how long he was holding out. Whatever this Sincline was, he felt guilty as hell about pointing them toward it in the beginning and he was ready to lose limbs or die to not make the same mistake again.

The holding cells had been quiet all morning and afternoon—or at least what passed for morning and afternoon in space—but he now heard the sound of the door at the end of the long hall opening and guards coming down through the cells. Evening was coming, it was time to pick the night’s competitors.

James had learned from other captives that what they called The Pit was a makeshift arena where prisoners were pitted against wild or primitive species and animals for the entertainment of Throk’s men. Sometimes people were taken out of the cells and returned later, visibly more beaten and bruised, but often they didn’t return at all and were replaced with fresh captives.

He held his breath as he heard the soldiers going down the line. He and Lance had been here for just about five days now by his count and they seemed to have orders to avoid Lance’s cell. So far, this had served James well since he wasn’t visible if he sat in the far back of his own cell and made it look empty to anyone who didn’t come down this far. He did that now, listening as barred gates were opened and frightened captives were ushered out as they were chosen.

That was another thing that was disturbing about this cell block. James would have bet money that only he and Lance were soldiers with self defense training, everyone else seemed to be civilians from various conquered planets.

A sharp knock on the bars of his cell made James look up and his stomach dropped. A guard was there, opening up the door.

“Out,” the Galra commanded. “Let’s go, I don’t have all day.”

The guards here carried tasers similar to the one Acxa had used on Lance, and James wasn’t eager to test out how badly they hurt. He got to his feet and stepped out into the hall, where he was pushed to fall into line with four other prisoners.

He hadn’t walked much, being stuck in a cell, so the prosthetic metal leg he now sported felt strange. He had woken up with it a few hours after initially being separated from Lance and taken to what looked more like a garage chop shop than an infirmary, his crushed and battered leg removed from the knee down and replaced with this alien addition. He could feel through it, which was weird, but could also tell that it wasn’t real. It moved very naturally, but at the same time it was a bit heavier than flesh and bone which made it impossible to forget it was there.

“Are we going on a field trip?” James asked blandly as he stepped into line, taking a look at the other four captives with him. “I really hope it’s to the aquarium.”

One of the guards gave him a punch in the back of the shoulder, just enough to throw him off balance and give him a bruise. James supposed he didn’t want to damage the night’s entertainment too badly if he didn’t have to.

One of the other captives was actively sobbing. Two were huddled together, the fourth was tromping along with a dead-eyed stare as they were led out of the cell block and down a hall. At the end was a door they were ushered through, into a dark room that was filled with noise. It was a sort of tunnel with bars on the far end, and James could both hear and partially see a crowd on the other side. There was a guard at the gate, yawning boredly as if the literal life or death of the people who had just been herded in here didn’t matter to him.

Which, of course it didn’t. These Galra were animals.

The other guards stayed back against the door they’d come through. Since it seemed that they were just supposed to wait here and nobody cared what they did, James braved stepping away from the group to lean against the wall. He peered out the grate at the front of the tunnel from his new angle, trying to get a look at where he was about to be sent to die.

It was probably about the size of half a hockey rink. Here on an outpost, he supposed they didn’t have the space for a huge arena and were just making due. He could see the burnt out hulls of destroyed ships dropped around in the middle to act as obstacles and shelter as combatants went at each other to the death.

Really charming stuff.

They waited there maybe twenty minutes before a tall, gaunt-looking Galra covered in scars arrived. He leered at the group in front of him, relishing in the terror he was inflicting. James decided that if he got the chance, this asshole would be the first one he killed.

“All right, who’s first?” The warden sneered. “Any volunteers, or should I just start tossing you out one by one?”

James knew he should have been scared, and on some level he was. But there was another layer there, one that temporarily insulated him against the worst of the terror he should be feeling. He was angry at what they were doing to Lance, spiteful toward Acxa for bringing him along to be used as a tool against his fellow pilot.

If he died in their stupid arena, they didn’t have any easy leverage against McClain. Whatever information he had would hopefully be safer for longer if he wasn’t in the equation. And that meant Earth was safer for longer.

“Sounds like a good time,” he called out, raising a hand. “What the hell, let me have a shot.”

James felt a jolt of cold fear run down his spine when everyone turned to look at him, but he kept his face blank and stared back at the warden defiantly. He’d known from the day the invasion came that he was likely to die in war and he had come to terms with it, if today was the day then so be it.

“We’ve got a show off,” the warden smirked, stepping aside. He gestured to the barred gate as the guard opened it back up, sarcastically bowing him through. “The overconfident ones are always the ones that bite it first.”

James shoved away from the wall and marched to the end of the tunnel, focusing on keeping his legs steady and his chin up. At the gate he was handed a machete-like blade, nicked and stained with use but recently sharpened.  His chest was constricted so badly he could barely breathe as he walked out into the brightly lit arena, momentarily blinded. The crowd wasn’t exactly a full sports field like back at home but there were a lot of Galra here jeering and yelling, and more than a few in the lower seats of the stands that he could tell were intoxicated.

So this was their idea of a good time. Absolutely disgusting.

He eyed the burnt ship husks as he moved slowly toward the arena center, his eyes adjusting. The ground here was packed earth, which made him feel uneasy. Digging up dirt and transporting it up from a planet’s surface took time, energy, and resources, and it wouldn’t have been done for no reason. Somehow, James doubted it was to make impacts with the floor less damaging.

He stopped when he reached the middle, slowly turning to look around. He didn’t have a clear line of sight to any of the arena’s edges thanks to all the obstacles, and he couldn’t tell if he was here alone. Gripping the machete handle tightly, he forced himself to take a deep breath through his nose and let it out through is mouth.

James knew how to use a military knife, he had been trained. This was a little bigger but many of the concepts were the same, and he was trained in hand-to-hand self defense. He’d just never taken into account how scared he would be when he had to put his lessons into practice, how much his hands would tremble or how reluctant his lungs would be to fill.

It was the change in the noise of the crowd that warned James that someone or something else had entered the ring. He spun around, searching for some signs of movement since he couldn’t hear over the din. He tried to focus on the faces of the nearest Galra, on the direction where they were looking. A few  in the closest seats were looking to his right, cheering excitedly.

James didn’t wait for his opponent to appear. He threw himself behind a big piece of twisted metal, peering out until he saw a huge, lumbering shape appear across the middle clearing. It wasn’t anything he was able to identify, maybe one of the Paladins could have if they were here, but he could tell it was scary and dangerous. It had horns, it had sharp teeth, and it had claws as long as James’ hand.

“Couldn’t have been something nice and safe, could it?” He muttered, flattening himself back against the metal. “A hungry tiger or a pissed off grizzly bear would really hit the spot right now.”

He crouched down and scurried along the ship hull, down to the other end. Taking a deep breath, he slowly leaned out to look around his shield.

Nothing. The creature was gone.

“Oh, dammit,” James whispered.

He got up, falling into a fighting stance, and slowly started to move around the steel blocking his way. His eyes swept the visible parts of the arena, looking for any movement or casted shadows. But his eyes weren’t what warned him, he didn’t _see_ anything amiss.

It was his new leg.

James felt a strange vibration in the ground, a sensation that was both familiar and strange at the same time. He knew what it was like to place his hand on something and feel it, and in that vein it was the same, but the sheer amount of information that ran through whatever sensors and hookup this thing had to his brain was alien.

He knew something was behind him. He knew it was big and it moved fast. He knew what direction it was coming in, and in the split-second that would have meant life or death he was able to drop down and roll to the side as claws missed his back. They were razor sharp, the chunk of hair they took off as he went down attested to that, and this thing could move quickly for its size.

He rolled to his side as the claws came straight down, raking up the earth from the floor, and ended up on his back. Kicking up with both legs, he slammed his feet into the thickly-furred underbelly of the snarling beast and was rewarded with an inhuman screech as a shock ran through it. James took advantage of its confusion, fighting himself to his feet and making a run for the shelter of a far piece of steel.

James wasn’t sure what activated any of these fancy features in his prosthetic, or how to turn them off. And while they’d obviously just kept him alive they were also very distracting, which was a severe problem at a time when he did not want to be distracted.

He kept darting from wreck to wreck, keeping metal between him and the animal tracking him. He had no idea what it’s strengths and weaknesses were or how he was supposed to fight it, and every time he put his new foot down on the ground he was overwhelmed with sensory information. The best thing he knew to do was to see if he could wear it down with time. Humans were pursuit predators, they had evolved for stamina, James just hoped that not a lot of other species had the same advantage. If he could outlast it, he might be able to take it down once it was tired.

The crowd was audibly frustrated by his avoidance, but he wasn’t particularly worried about being popular. What he _was_ worried about was when they suddenly began cheering loudly again and looking in the direction of the far side of the arena. Something else had been added to the mix, and he was not ready for this.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” he muttered. It was getting hot in here and he had sweat running down his back, which was only making this more difficult. “One alien isn’t enough, now I have to deal with tw-WHOA!”

The metal over his head exploded out over his head as the thing finally caught up to him, raking its claws through his shelter. He stabbed upward with his blade, burying it in the underside of a huge mottled paw, and took off running again. He moved back toward the center of the arena, where the biggest open space was, careful to keep himself hidden from whatever else had been released.

When he felt safe enough to stop he flattened himself against a broken piece of glider wing and carefully peeked out, scanning the area. It was a moment before he saw movement, but when he did he felt ill. The jerky, nervous movements of two other captives from the tunnel practically bled fear as they huddled together and slowly shuffled along. They both had blades similar to James’ but neither of them held one in any way even remotely resembling accurate, they’d obviously never had to defend themselves before in their lives.

“Dammit,” James hissed, looking around one more time before leaning out farther and waving his arms wildly. “Hey! HEY! Get back! Get behind something, hide!”

His voice was lost in the screams of the impatient crowd. He was debating whether or not he had enough time to run across the clearing and drag them behind shelter when the huge, hulking figure of the very angry predator burst into view at the far end. James stood, unable to look away, as it closed the distance to the two captives who stood frozen in fear.

It tore into them like they were made of paper. There was blood, so much blood, as powerful claws and teeth rended flesh and bone, and when the thing was done it sniffed the air and continued on in the direction of the entrance tunnel. It wasn’t a leap of faith to believe the two remaining captives were also in the arena, likely cowering off out of sight and unaware of what was coming for them.

The thing didn’t even _eat_ any of its kill, it wasn’t doing this because it was hungry. It had either been bred or raised specifically for this, just so a bunch of sadistic Galra could sit around watching it tear prisoners to pieces. It was doing this for _sport._

He began to understand that he only had two options here today. The first was to get killed, which which would be messy and painful but would take away any leverage Acxa or her druid friends had over Lance. The second was to kill this thing and survive, which would probably mean he’d be right back here tomorrow with something worse but at least he’d be alive.

“This is the shittiest win-win situation I’ve ever heard of,” he groaned, wincing as the crowd’s cheers became a roar of approval.

There went the other two prisoners, probably.

“Here goes nothing, I guess,” James muttered, gripping his machete and stepping out of his hiding place. He walked out to the center of the arena, leaving plenty of open space around him on all sides. He now had nowhere to hide, but neither did this creature.

It really didn’t help that the crowd was so loud, drowning out any warning sounds he might have been able to hear. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feelings that he was slowly beginning to grow accustomed to, the vibrations from the ground around him.

If he likened it to sonar, he could almost understand it better. The prosthetic picked up even the tiniest of movements and then likely processed them somehow before sending the information up his nerves and into his brain. Something had probably been installed in his head while he was asleep to translate that information, because there was no way the human brain could read these sensations so easily. If James concentrated he couldn’t just tell if the thing was close, he could pick out where it was in the arena.

He could read its movements, feel it shuffling around the edges of the enclosure. He could sense that it zig-zagged almost drunkenly as if trying to avoid putting its full weight on one paw, likely the one James had injured. He had already seen that it could still move quickly but it was definitely slowed a bit, and now he knew he could definitely hurt it.

James remained still and waited. Even when he could feel it starting to come toward him, when he knew it had picked his scent back up and was coming for him, he didn’t move. He didn’t move when his heart started to pound, or when the fingers wrapped around the handle of the machete started to feel weak.

There was some kind of announcement over the loudspeaker overhead, something that made the Galra watching start to cheer again. Momentarily he felt a heavier vibration that was likely a gate opening at the fare side of the arena, and sensed the much softer footfalls of some kind of humanoid. This one had come from a different direction than the others, which put him on guard. Maybe it was another prisoner kept in a different cell block, or maybe it was a Galra competitor joining the game.

The heavier movements came to the edge of the clearing, purposely coming from behind as the creature looked for an easy way to bring down its target. The hair on the back of James’ neck stood up but he forced himself to stay still and not turn around. It started moving toward him, slowly at first, but picked up speed when it believed him to be oblivious.

James gripped the machete so hard his knuckles turned white, his body tensing in preparation. It was its own kind of torture to not move, to wait until the last possible second to spin out of the way to the side. He whipped the weapon around in a slicing motion as he moved to draw it along the beast’s side as it lumbered by, its own momentum helping carry the blade along its flank. It cut deep, and James could feel it scrape bone, but it wasn’t a killing blow.

The creature let out another of those blood curdling screeches and came to a stop, twitching around and trying to lap at its bleeding side. James watched with a sinking feeling as it recovered far too quickly, only barely slowed by the blow. He hadn’t been able to plunge the machete into vital organs, this thing’s rib cage seemed to run longer than those of animals from Earth.

It came at him and he dove out of the way, leaping to his feet and making a run for cover. He had been lucky so far but now his luck ran out as he felt claws catch his prosthetic leg at the ankle and yank him down to the ground. Instinctively, James curled up into a ball and tried to shield as many of his vulnerable spots as possible even as he was dragged back. He made the mistake of peering around his arm and found himself looking up into a gaping maw framed with razor sharp teeth, tensing as he waited for them to tear into his body.

The beast started to lunge down at him then snarled, its head flying to the side as something hit it with force. It roared angrily and leapt away from James, going at something else that had come from the side to make it angry and distract it. James did not need to be told to get out of there, he grabbed the machete and stumbled to his feet, running and going into a diving roll that left him hidden under the overhang of an old striker fuselage.

He had no idea what was going on until something darted past him, something running on two legs. As it continued around the clearing, keeping to the edge, he could see that it was a person. Not just a person, a _human_.

James could tell by the way the guy moved, even though he was covered from neck to toe. He wasn’t wearing armor but he definitely wasn’t wearing the clothes he’d been taken in either, so this likely wasn’t his first time in this arena. His face was covered with a sort of half-mask that looked like it was made to counteract the bright lights of the arena, and his long, tawny hair was pulled back in a braid.

He was using a staff, and never stopped moving. He never came into the center of the clearing but stuck to the edge, forcing the creature in the middle to continue spinning to keep him in its sights. It was never able to stand still, never able to aim and pounce. Every now and then the guy would dart forward, and as the unprepared creature continued to spin he would manage to land a sharp blow against its side before going back to his preferred method of distraction.

There was some kind of spike on the end of the staff, as the minutes ticked by James could see more and more punctures in the predator’s flanks. They weren’t lethal but the pain was distracting, and the buildup of wounds was slowing it down. After a few more minutes the man stopped, pulling his staff apart into two. He braced the end of one half against the edge of the other, using the latter to propel the former forward like a projectile.

The weapon had some serious physics behind it. The spiked half of the staff slammed through the creature’s temple like an arrow, dropping it to the ground of the arena in a twitching, bleeding mess.

For a moment, James didn’t believe it was over. He kept waiting for the thing to get up, watching it carefully with the full expectation that it wasn’t dead and was still a danger. He was still ducked under the fuselage, staring at it, when booted feet came into view. One kicked the fuselage, making it echo loudly over him.

“It’s dead,” a man’s voice called. “You can come out. Your weapon first, and remember I’m armed.”

James grimaced, but knew he couldn’t blame the guy for being wary. God only knew how many things he’d been pitted against in this arena, or if any of them were other humans who had been convinced killing their own kind for their captors entertainment would get them a ticket out of here. He threw the machete out into the open before easing himself out, raising his hands in surrender as he got to his feet.

“Holy shit…James?”

The voice itself was familiar, but it was the way the man swore that clicked. That very common exclamation, usually followed by another Garrison instructor chastising for language. Even before the man reached up and pulled off the mask, even with the strangely reflective artificial eyes that were visible when he did, James knew who he was looking at.

“Captain Wolfe?”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Several years ago_** :

The sirens were a sound Adam had known he would hear sooner or later, but had prayed daily wouldn’t come. They blared out in the middle of the day, the specialized sirens that warned everyone at the Garrison that alien ships had been picked up by the long range scanners. The classroom lights were off for the jet navigation system video being shown, the natural light filtering through the windows turning a sickly orange as the base’s particle barrier went up. That alone was bone-chilling, the barrier meant danger was imminent.

“ _All personnel, proceed to your command stations immediately,”_ an authoritative voice came over the loudspeaker. _“Repeat, all personnel, proceed to your command stations immediately.”_

“Leave your things!” Adam commanded the room of young cadets as they started to rise from their chairs. “This isn’t a drill! Leave everything and follow the evac procedures, single file! Move quickly!”

His gun was locked in his desk while students were in the room, a requirement of all armed teachers. He removed it now and clipped it to his belt as he brought up the rear of the group, knowing it was next to useless right now anyway. If that barrier went down they’d be in an active combat situation that required a lot more firepower than his standard issue pistol.

The children in his care were fourteen and fifteen years old, just the right age to think they were adults until something like this happened. Now they panicked, as did some of the younger kids now filtering out into the halls. It was something the adults were prepared for, they all moved to the edges of the group and closed in ranks, arms outstretched in a sort of makeshift fence that kept scared students from breaking off.

The older cadets were also prepared, those who were nearing graduation or just a bit younger. They came out of their own classrooms and followed the example of the teachers, moving to the edges of the crowd to help herd their younger classmates to safety. If any safety could be found.

It was less than two minutes before Adam had descended the stairs into the attack shelter and started to count his students, but it felt like ages. The classes all fell into lines by the far wall of the Atlas hangar, the professors going down the rows to check that everyone was present. Adam’s class was all safe and accounted for, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

As he looked out at all the scared young faces, he wished he could reassure them. Some of these children had been here for several years, he knew them well and cared about many of them. They were scared, they needed someone they trusted to tell them everything would be all right. But he wasn’t able to do that, because he didn’t want to lie.

“Montgomery, can you handle babysitting from here on out?” Adam called to a fellow teacher as she finished counting her own heads. “I need to get up there, I can’t wait for the assistants to get here.”

“I’ve got it,” she assured him. “Be careful.”

“Yeah, like that’ll help in an alien invasion,” Adam muttered to himself, turning to jog across the hangar to the elevators that would take him back up.

He felt eyes on him and wondered if his students felt like he was abandoning them. The older ones knew how things worked, but he wasn’t sure about the first or second year students. He didn’t know if they understood he wasn't leaving them behind, that he was on his way to try and keep them safe.

The halls of the Garrison were deathly quiet, even with all the people running back and forth. With the children out of the way the soldiers were free to move quickly, and Adam made the trip to the command tower at a run.

“Stockton!” He practically yelled as he burst through the door, panting as he darted along the row of radar techs to a blonde woman sitting at the end. He grabbed the back of her chair to bring himself to a stop, accidentally pulling her out a few feet, then spun her around and shoved her back into place. “What’s happening? What do we have? What’s going on?”

“You just collapsed my lungs, that’s what’s happening,” she wheezed, rubbing her stomach where he’d accidentally shoved her into the table. “Honestly, I don’t know what we have yet. Looks like a whole lot of alien ships have dropped down into our atmosphere, but nothing’s happened yet.”

“What do you mean nothing’s happened?” Adam pressed. “What are they doing?”

“Moving into position would be my guess,” Daniels, the man sitting next to Stockton, answered as he pulled up a collection of livestream feeds from around the planet. “They’re everywhere, but mostly congregating over the big cities. I don’t have to tell you that’s not good.”

“Maybe they just stopped by to say hello,” Stockton said, her tone indicating she very much did not believe that was why they were here.

“Or goodbye,” Daniels answered.

“They’re moving,” Adam noted, his eyes darting from livestream to livestream. “All of them.”

All of the strange cruisers were beginning to light up at once, regardless of where they were on the planet. A second later they started firing weapons Adam had never seen before, the powerful bursts taking out everything in their path.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Daniels whispered, slowly standing up from his seat to watch the carnage with his mouth hanging open. “This is unreal.”

The loud crack of explosions sounded in the distance, followed by a secondary siren. This one, Adam knew, was to prepare pilots to scramble the fighters.

“Oh good, I was just waiting for my chance to go out and get shot at,” Adam breathed, pushing away from the control console he was leaning against. “Well Stockton, it was nice knowing you. Not you, Daniels, you give terrible Christmas presents.”

He darted out of the control tower, patting Stockton on the shoulder in farewell and giving Daniels a hard slap in the back of the head as he passed.

Adam wasn’t exactly the most elegant of people, and it showed in the way he ran completely past the door of the pilots’ locker room only to skid to an unsteady stop and nearly have to pick himself up off the floor before throwing himself inside. There were a handful of others already there, all of them stripping down quickly to throw on their flight suits. But elegant or not, Adam was one of the top pilots at the Galaxy Garrison, of not the top pilot now that Takashi was gone. He knew his job and he was quick and efficient at it, and within minutes he was back out and running across the tarmac for his plane. As he threw on his harness and started her up, the loudspeakers flared to life again.

_“This is Commander Iverson, initiate base defense protocol Beta-Five. I repeat, initiate base defense protocol Beta-Five.”_

“You heard the man,” Adam declared flipping on his mic. “We’re up. Wildcat, Titan, on my nine. Sandman, Diesel, on my three. Fly formation until we get a good look at what we’re up against. When I call break, do your thing. Deliverance! Tell me where your squad’s going and we’ll take what’s left.”

_“Copy that, Brokeback. We’ll bank south, you take north, we’ll sandwich ‘em between.”_

“Copy,” Adam fired up his jet as the signal was given, taxiing to his takeoff point. He checked that his squad was ready behind him and took off, heading for the particle barrier at top speed.

A section of barrier dropped to let them out as the fighter jets shot into the sky, the two units breaking apart to come up on the approaching enemies from opposite directions as planned. The weather was clear and visibility was excellent, which let him get a good look at the approaching vessels even while they were miles away.

“Shit, I forgot to take off my glasses,” Adam grumbled, scrunching up his nose inside his helmet. They were anti-glare glasses he wore specifically to protect his eyes from strain, they were not meant to be worn in a situation where they could fly off his face and get stuck in his helmet.

“ _There are thirty giant alien spaceships that are probably about to start shooting at us,_ ” Titan snorted over the comm. “ _I think you might just have a slightly bigger problem than your ugly ass glasses._ ”

“These are Burberry!” Adam shot back. “Don’t you dare talk about my style, you wear cowboy boots unironically!”

“ _My boots are a cultural requirement, your glasses are a stupid choice.”_

“You’re from Maryland, jackass.”

“ _Girls, girls, calm down,”_ Diesel snorted. “ _Take your frustrations out on the big nasties coming up on our twelve, you freaking nerds.”_

It was hard to imagine the Galra ships being bigger than they already looked from a distance, but as the squadron came up to combat altitude and closed the distance they seemed to become formidably bigger. The nervous commentary evaporated as the pilots focused on their targets.

“Stay in formation!” Adam ordered. “Test fire on my mark…go!”

Each plane fired a single missile, five in a row so they were guaranteed to hit something. The smaller striker planes swarming out of the larger cruisers easily avoided being struck, and all five missiles hit the hull of the nearest Galra cruiser. When the smoke cleared there was no visible damage.

“Break!” Adam ordered, turning his jet straight up to put some distance between himself and the growing number of strikers. Wildcat and Diesel turned downwards while Titan and Sandman banked left and right respectively. “Our weapons have no effect! Evasive maneuvers!”

He knew he should keep his attention on the cruisers and try to find a weakness, but he had a dismaying feeling that their firepower was not going to penetrate whatever those ships were made of. The sheer size and number of them told him they were fighting a losing battle with their relatively small number of fighters, this was not going to end well.

But there were children in the Atlas hangar huddled together for safety, and Sam Holt was down there trying to get Earth’s first space-worthy warship functional. If all Adam could do now was buy them even a few more minutes to reinforce defenses, then that was what he’d do.

Once the order to break had come through, it was every pilot for himself. Adam dove back down into the cloud of alien strikers, picking the first one he saw and opening fire. His weapons barely seemed to graze it even though he knew he’d hit it head on, which was very disconcerting.

“Okay, you’re apparently not going to go down, with or without a fight,” he mumbled, banking left sharply to avoid a collision with his target. “I guess all I can do now is annoy the hell out of you for a while. Luckily, I’ve been told I’m very annoying.”

 He dodged and rolled, weaving in and out of the alien strikers at top speed. He got off shots when he had the chance, doing his best to make himself a desirable target for them to come after instead of the base. There was nothing he could do for the other pilots out here, the air was too thick with enemy combatants.

“ _Wildcat’s gone!”_ Sandman exclaimed over the comm. “ _Titan’s not responding!_ ”

_“I can’t shake these things, he’s locked onto me!”_ Diesel shouted. Adam tried to spot her in the throng of fighters, but there was no way he could find her to help.

_“Hang in there, I’m heading your way!”_ Deliverance announced.

_“I can’t! No…!”_

The sound of yet another explosion over the radio told him it was useless. Wildcat, Titan, and Diesel were down. If Deliverance was on his way over from the south side, the rest of his squad were probably down as well. That left only the two of them and Sandman, not exactly good odds.

_“Brokeback, Deliverance, Sandman_ ,” Adam identified Stockton’s voice over the radio. “ _Be aware, another Galra fleet is launching and approaching._ ”

“Another one?” Adam checked his scanners. “We haven’t even put a dent in the first one!”

_“Brokeback, on my three. Sandman, on my nine,”_ Deliverance ordered. “ _Let’s make one last pass at the nearest cruiser, I think the crack in their armor is the spot where those lasers fire from. If we can get in, get a few shots off, and get out, we might be able to take them down.”_

“Worth a try, I’ve got nowhere else to be,” Adam answered, rolling out of the way of a striker’s fire.

He dipped down to join the other two jets, coming around and approaching the cruiser from the rear. The strikers were thinner here, as they all started to reconvene into a formation to attack the Garrison. The cruiser had eyes on them though, and as they got closer their lasers started to glow in preparation to fire. It pinpointed where they needed to fire, but Adam couldn’t get a clear shot thanks to the second wave of strikers arriving.

“ _I have the target locked!”_ Sandman exclaimed. “ _I—”_

She never had a chance to fire. In that instant the Cruiser caught her up in its lasers, turning the jet into a fireball in the sky. Adam couldn’t avoid it, he flew through the cloud of fire and smoke and was momentarily blinded. When it cleared he found himself looking at the very quickly approaching hull of the Galra cruiser.

“Shit! No! Down, down, down!” He hissed to his plane as he dove, trying to veer to the right as he did so to avoid hitting a striker. He was rewarded with a deafening scraping sound as he grazed the side of the cruiser, taking off his entire wing.

The dive became a fall, his plane spinning as it dropped toward the desert below. Adam had been here before, back in the beginning days of being a pilot when he’d lost a wing thanks to an oblivious newbie and ended up in the hospital for a week. That crash had been low altitude, this was not going to be.

Crossing his fingers, he hit his eject control just seconds before his plane slammed into the ground.

* * * * *

It was dark when Adam woke up, or at least darker than it had been when he’d hit the ground. He felt a choking sensation at his neck, and the distinct feeling of being dragged. He could vaguely see a floor passing by below him but one of his eyes ached terribly and didn’t seem to be working. The other was crusted with dirt and probably blood, and while he could see it still hurt.

His wrists were bound behind him and wherever he was it was cold. If he looked to the left and right he could see boots that he knew didn’t belong to the military from Earth and walls of dark metal that weren’t from any Garrison base or ship he’d ever seen.

He didn’t have to see who was dragging him to know he was a prisoner of war.

Adam was pulled through a doorway and forced up to his knees, almost immediately hitting the floor again. Somebody yanked him up and supported him by holding onto the collar of his flight suit, allowing him to look groggily around what appeared to be a bridge. His mouth tasted like blood.

“Commander Sendak! The ground team thought you might be interested in this.”

It was the Galra soldier standing next to him who spoke, her words aimed at the tall, weird-looking purple guy who seemed to be running things. He didn’t look like the kind of werewolf who enjoyed being interrupted.

“What is it? Why is that here?”

“I just got called “that” by a muppet,” Adam slurred. “That’s rich.”

He felt his airway constrict as the Galra holding him choked him with his own collar. The one standing next to them reached down into the pocket of Adam’s flight suit, retrieving the photograph he kept there.

“This is one of their pilots, the only one to survive. He was carrying this.”

She passed him the photograph, one of Adam and Takashi in happier times. They hadn’t parted ways under good circumstances and he still wasn’t quite over it yet, and the photograph of the two of them smiling together helped him get through the day sometimes. Because even though he knew it was wishful thinking on his part, Sam Holt had told him that Takashi was still alive out there, and that he would be back. If that miracle happened, then maybe there was a shot at them working out their differences too.

The choke hold released when he started coughing. Adam tilted his head up again to look at this Sendak guy as he approached and took the photo. He squinted, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing.

“So are you like…the king furry here?” He asked blearily.

He was immediately choked again. It didn’t seem like they wanted him to talk.

“A friend of my dear Champion,” Sendak realized, his scowl turning into a smirk as he looked at the picture. “A _very_ good friend. I did tell him that I would visit his planet and see what other fighters it had to offer, this is such a nice gift to come across right after arrival.”

He balled the picture up and threw it off to the side, gripping Adam’s hair and tilting his head back to look at him. It hurt like hell along with not being able to breathe.

“His vision is damaged,” the female soldier reported. “He was wearing some kind of protective lenses that broke on impact with the ground and embedded. Other than that, only bruises and scrapes. He’s very physically fit as far as we know of humans, it won’t take much to get him ready for the pit.”

“Send him to the outpost,” Sendak ordered, turning back to the bridge’s viewscreen. “Have his eyes fixed and let’s see how he does in the ring. With any luck the Paladins will be arriving soon and we’ll be sending a broken Champion to join him shortly.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day_** :

James did not get to sit around and enjoy the fact that he was still alive. Only seconds after he recognized Adam, Galra guards had come out into the arena and separated them. James found himself marched back into the entrance tunnel, past the morbidly torn apart bodies of his fellow prisoners, and back to the cell block.

He was at least allowed to shower, the flight suit he still wore taken away and replaced by a prisoner’s uniform similar to the one worn by Adam. Once the blood and fur had been cleaned away he was taken back to his cell, where he was left in peace.

Relatively. Lance’s cell was once again occupied by multiple people, only this time it was Acxa and a different medic. James was careful not to draw their attention to him as he moved to lean in the corner of his cell’s bars, where he could see and hear what was going on while hopefully not being noticed.

Lance’s cell was cleaned up, the blood was gone. He had been cleaned up as well, his flight suit was gone and he was also in a prisoner’s uniform. He was still unconscious, but the medic was currently doing a much more thorough job of fixing up his wounded wrist than had been done previously. Lance’s face had also been neatly bandaged where he’d scraped it on the floor during his seizure.

Acxa watched everything like a hawk, ensuring it was done to her specifications. This was a very interesting development, because it told James something very important: Acxa was the one who didn’t want Lance physically hurt for information.

No wonder then that Natille had waited for Axca to be gone before she’d threatened to cut out Lance’s eye, or that she’d been so quick to try and hide the damage to his wrist. This was a gift, if he could use it to play one against the other at some point.

Acxa looked up and spotted him watching even though he’d been trying not to move. She stepped out of Lance’s cell and approached his, looking extremely annoyed.

“Where were you?”

“Christmas shopping,” James answered, matching her snotty tone. “Where do you think I was? Down the hall getting my ass slobbered on by your murder-bred pet of the week.”

“You were in the pit?”

“Did I stutter?”

Acxa reached through the bars before he could move and gave him a hard knuckle punch in the shoulder for his sarcasm. He backed up, scowling and rubbing the newly sore spot as she went back to Lance’s cell. She and the medic were there for another twenty minutes or so.

Before they left they laid him out with a folded up towel under his head to soften the floor, resting on his back instead of splayed out at random. Acxa left a bottle of water in the cell and the two of them left the cell block, but not before James heard her stop and talk to the guard in charge.

“Those two cells at the end are off limits,” he heard her hiss. “ _Both_ of them. If I come back here and find one of my prisoners has been dragged off for your entertainment again, I will murder every one of you. Am I understood?”

The guard mumbled a sputtered apology, and she stormed out of the block. James retreated to his usual spot, sliding down to sit with his back to the corner of the cell.

_She just told them to keep me away from the arena_ , he realized, a heavy wave of relief washing over him. He wasn’t proud of the fact that he was terrified to go back. He wasn’t ready to die, even though he’d already come to the conclusion that it would be better for the universe as a whole if he did so Lance’s information stayed safe. He wanted to be that brave soldier who would lay his life down for anything, but reality was showing him just how difficult the persona the military had sold him his whole life could really be.

James closed his eyes, picturing Earth. He thought about being home, even if home still being dug out from under piles of rubble. At least it wasn’t a cell on an alien base, it wasn’t fear over what was going to happen next. It wasn’t guilt of what was happening to a fellow soldier or the frustration at being unable to do anything to stop it.

He pictured home and missed it in silence, trying to drift off for a few precious moments of rest in the rare stretch of silence in the cells.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay everyone...sorry this took so long! I finally got back from traveling this weekend, but got hit by a cold immediately and I'm a big baby. Chapters should come out faster now.
> 
> One chapter of existential mess just for backstory, then we'll all be back to our regularly scheduled emotional torture!

**_Current day_** :

Hunk was very good at looking guilty, which was ironic given that he was probably the only member of the Voltron team who didn’t explicitly start some kind of trouble at least weekly. But Shiro couldn’t blame him for being nervous, Admiral Miller was a short, gaunt man who resembled a goblin and had the personality to match. He had achieved his position only because everyone above him had died, and he functioned on the very incorrect belief that every weapon within Earth’s atmosphere was somehow under his jurisdiction.

“This is an outrage, Shirogane!” Miller fumed for the third time. Or maybe the fifth, Shiro had made the conscious decision to stop listening about ten minutes ago. “He was not supposed to leave this base, and now he’s gone! On your watch!”

“In my defense, I wasn’t actually watching,” Shiro answered. “And, you know, he’s like a cat. He gets out really easy if you don’t keep all the windows closed.”

“Is this some kind of joke to you?” Miller asked, pausing in his pacing to lean into Shiro’s personal space. That was his third mistake, right after barging into Shiro’s office without knocking, and demanding to know where the Green Lion was as if it were any of his business. “One of my Lions is missing—”

“ _Katie Holt’s_ Lion,” Shiro interrupted loudly, raising his voice for the first time to talk over Miller. “Is with her, wherever she is. And so is her leader, who is the only one she answers to. Which means she’s on a sanctioned trip for her unit and nothing is missing. Neither one of them is under any requirement to report their movements to a man who hid in a shelter with civilian women and children while they almost died saving this planet.”

Shiro was not a man who spit in the face of authority lightly. It took a lot, and even if he didn’t have respect for the people in charge he always had respect for their positions. But he was also an absolute viper when it came to defending those under his command, especially from an overpaid asshat who barely knew how to not put his insignia on upside down. Miller was coming at his team, and Shiro was going to come right back at him like a pissed off mama bear.

“I could bust your ass back down to Airman if I wanted to, Shirogane,” Miller fumed. “You better watch your mouth, or you’ll lose your command.”

“With all due respect sir, which is none, go ahead,” Shiro returned. It was hard being scared of the eerie little troll when he was leaning back against his desk, towering over him. Iverson should have been given the position of Admiral, not Miller. He actually deserved it.  “I—and the rest of Voltron’s team—are here out of courtesy. The Coalition has absolutely no problem leaving this planet and taking up base elsewhere. We’ll be taking our technology and weapons with us, of course, but I’m sure you can get by with just the plans for the Atlas. Since we’ll also be taking the ship itself with us, because who’s going to stop us?”

He smiled amiably when he said it, refusing to show anger. The authorities on Earth had benefited a great deal from the technology brought here by the Coalition but had provided nothing of value in return yet. Voltron was here as a protective force, based on this planet because the Paladins called it home and no other reason.

Its pilots accepted the Garrison ranking system because they were young and felt like they were being told to by authority figures. Shiro had no problem reminding them that they were an autonomous unit under Keith, and only Keith, if they wanted to be.

“And as for Kogane leaving the base, he was never under lock and key for _your_ satisfaction,” Shiro added. “Or as a punishment. It was for his safety while his emotions were running high. If Hunk hacked that ankle monitor of his own free will, then I trust his judgement that Keith wasn’t running off to be reckless.”

Hunk looked up at them, but immediately dropped his gaze down to his feet when Miller glared at him. Miller looked like he was going to tear into the kid, and at that point Shiro had enough. He crossed the room and opened his office door.

“Have a good day, Admiral Miller,” he said in a clipped tone. “My crew and Keith’s team can be off this planet for good in under twenty-four hours, I’ll be waiting for your request for us to do so and be out of your way.”

Miller was pissed, and it showed. He didn’t like being talked to like this by someone he considered a lower ranking officer, but Shiro meant what he said. He’d rip these Commander strips off and walk out the door right now if he was given a reason, he had been through too much to bow down to people whose only life experience was encompassed in this tiny corner of the universe. The Coalition would welcome him, as well as the rest of the team, with open arms.

And Shiro would damn well take the Atlas with him. It responded to him and they all knew it.

Miller stormed out, wrenching the door out of Shiro’s hand so he could slam it behind him. Shiro made a sarcastic “oooh, I’m so _scared_ ” gesture at the closed door before he turned back to Hunk. The poor guy didn’t like conflict if he could avoid it, especially with people who he saw as authority figures.

“If you ever see that jerk on the street, run him over,” Shiro advised, crossing his office again to sit on the edge of his desk. “It will do the whole universe a favor.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll do something?” Hunk asked. “Court martial you or drop your rank?”

“Who cares?” Shiro asked honestly. “Hunk, when I was a pilot I dreamed of being a commanding officer. Now I’m a commanding officer and all I want is to be a pilot again. There’s a reason Keith’s never in his office if he can help it, it sucks. I would love to be back working with you guys every day instead of spending hours on bureaucracy.”

He nodded his head at Hunk’s wrist, where Keith’s ankle monitor was resting.

“So, how’d you get caught?”

“I went to the mess hall,” Hunk answered sheepishly. “I was supposed to hang out in Keith’s room and just move around every now and then, but I forgot to take it off and leave it in the room when I went to grab something to snack on. Someone saw it and reported it to Miller. How much trouble am I going to be in?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shiro advised. “Seriously, Hunk. If any of them come at you over it, tell them to back off. Or refer them to me. You guys aren’t here to dance to their tune, okay? So where did Keith go?”

“Back to the cavern where we all found Blue,” Hunk answered. He pulled the monitor off his wrist and set it on Shiro’s desk. “He wanted to come to you with some stuff we found, but he needed to get some more information first.”

“Well that doesn’t sound strangely ominous at all.”

“Sorry,” Hunk looked guilty again. “I want to tell you, but I should wait for Keith and Pidge first.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro assured him, looking out the window at the late morning sky. “If they’ve been gone all night they’ll probably be back soon.”

Miller had put Shiro in a bad mood, so he left the office with Hunk and went down to the Lion hangars. Red still sat in hers with her barrier up, and Black sat quietly where he’d been left behind. Allura was lying across a large tool chest, flipping through a book since she was there all alone. As he soon found out, she had been told Keith and Pidge weren’t here but also hadn’t been given any details.

The three of them were still in the hangar, discussing what could be done to make it clear to Earth’s authorities that the chain of command wasn’t the one they thought it was when the Green Lion appeared on the horizon over the desert. Pidge closed the distance fast, and within a few moments they were landing and disembarking.

“Oh my God,” Shiro stared at them as they stepped out onto the tarmac. “What the hell?”

They were both a mix of gray and black, covered with rock dust and dirt from head to toe. Both were a mess, their hair sticking out at odd angles and their faces smeared despite having helmets, the white of their armor almost completely obscured by the mess. And Keith, _Keith_ was sporting a second vibrant stripe on his face and glaringly yellow sclera that were impossible to miss even with the dirt.

Keith was carrying something wrapped in a sheet of canvas, probably dug out of Green’s cargo hold. He looked somber and strained, on top of being tired.

“Allura,” he nodded toward the end of the hangar, to the storage room used by the mechanics. “Shiro.”

Shiro looked over at Allura, but she didn’t seem to know what was going on either. He waited for her and Keith to go first and followed, looking back questioningly at the others. Pidge was holding Hunk back, pulling him away toward Green and whispering something to him. When they went inside Keith asked the mechanic working on something to please leave, locking the door once she was gone.

“What’s going on?” Allura asked, hugging herself. “This is getting a little bit scary.”

“Sorry,” Keith murmured as he moved to the work bench in the middle of the room, setting his burden down on a clear spot. “I just don’t know what to say.”

He carefully unwrapped the canvas, lifting a helmet out and setting it on the table. It was Allura’s helmet as far as Shiro could tell, a bit dirty but otherwise nothing special. But the way she looked at it was as if she’d seen a ghost.

Keith opened the last fold of the canvas and took out a strip of stone with something carved in it. The surface was darkened with age but the edges were clean and jagged, which made Shiro think Keith had broken the carving out of a larger piece of rock.

“Pidge read this for me,” he said quietly, setting it on the table next to the helmet. “She told me it says “Melenor.”

Shiro had never seen Allura looks so absolutely broken. Tears were already running silently down her face and her hands were shaking as she picked up the helmet, pulling it close and wrapping her arms around it. He wasn’t prepared when she suddenly started to cry, falling to her knees and rocking back and forth. She could barely pull in enough air to breathe, her body wracked with anguished sobs.

He didn’t know what was going on. He wasn’t sure where the helmet came from, or the piece of rock, or why it was such a huge deal. It took him a moment before he remembered standing in the Castle of Lions, listening to Coran tell them about the beginnings of Voltron and the end of Altea. He had only said the name once, when referencing Alfor’s wife.

_Her mother_ , Shiro realized with a jolt.

He wasn’t sure what to do. Keith was right, what did you say at a time like this? It was borderline disturbing to see Allura in such obvious agony, she’d always put up such a strong front he couldn’t remember even seeing her shed a tear. Still, he wanted to do something, so he started to step forward.

Keith moved before Shiro could reach Allura, kneeling in front of her. He gently pulled the helmet out of her hands and set it on the floor beside them, wrapping his arms around her. It was a little awkward, he wasn’t used to giving comfort, and from the look on his face he wasn’t entirely here right now. Part of him was likely miles away and years ago, standing at his own father’s grave as a newly-made orphan.

Allura clung to him, crying harder. Keith held her tightly as she screamed against his chest, something in her finally breaking after the last few years of being a hardened fighter. It hurt to watch, especially when there was nothing he could do to fix it. Shiro decided the best thing he could do was excuse himself, to give some privacy in this painful moment.

He stepped dazedly out into the light of the hangar, quietly closing the door behind him and feeling slightly guilty as he did. Shiro knew Keith had wanted him to come along so that _he_ could comfort Allura in case he wasn’t able to. But he also felt a little bit proud of the kid, that he was beginning to sympathize and empathize with people and not feel so closed off. This was a terrible circumstance to grow that way, but it was still growth.

Shiro made his way over to Green, where Pidge and Hunk waited solemnly. They only had to look at his face to know there was an emotional disaster going on behind that closed door.

“How did you find that helmet?”

“It was in an offshoot tunnel from Blue’s cavern,” Pidge answered. “Keith felt it. Well, not the helmet, he felt this.”

She opened the bag at her side and fished out a tiara, similar to the one Allura had previously worn but slightly bigger and more ornate. The Altean queen’s crown, most likely. It glowed faintly with three gems, where Allura’s old one had only had one.

“We didn’t want to give it to her yet,” Pidge murmured, looking down at it. “We just…wanted her to have some time before we threw this at her too. And the casket.”

“The what?” Shiro wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Did you just say casket?”

“Well, technically it’s one of Blue’s storage lockers,” Pidge answered, glancing back up at Green’s entrance. “It looks like Queen Melenor died pretty soon after Blue landed, she was buried close to the Lion in one of those. The caverns are getting more and more unstable, Keith thought Melenor deserved to be buried properly with a soldier’s honors. And that Allura deserved to bury her mom where she wanted.”

“You spent the night digging up a body?” Shiro exclaimed, raking his hands through his hair. If it wasn’t white already this would definitely have added a streak to it. “Oh my God, I never thought I’d have to say those words! Well, maybe to Keith, but Pidge! Not to _you_!”

“Everything was caving in!” Pidge defended. “We knew she might never be found again!”

“ _You_ might have gotten caved in and never been found again!” Shiro groaned, rubbing his face tiredly. “Okay, look…you’re back, you’re safe. You’re also filthy. Go hit the showers, I’ll have someone come and offload the locker and get it to the morgue for safekeeping. When you’re done go to meeting room B-6, I think everyone needs to sit down and go over what the hell is going on with everybody.”

He gestured wildly for her to just get out of his sight, before he had a stroke.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_10,000 Years Ago_** :

“Alfor?” The reinforced soles of Melenor’s boots pounded against the sleek floors of the Castle hall, their rhythm a song of panic in the otherwise quiet ship. She tried to stop at the door to the bridge, overshot it, fell on her knees and slid. The pink armor she wore protected her knees from the fall, and in short order she was back on her feet and throwing herself through the doorway. “Alfor? Coran! Where’s Alfor?”

Coran was at the control panel with two of the royal guard, preparing the Castle of Lions to leave the solar system as soon as the Lions were safely sent away.

“He left here about a varga ago to find you and finalize the plans,” Coran looked startled at the revelation that she didn’t know where her husband was. He began running the locator system, only to have a look of surprised dismay fall over his face.

“What is it?”

“He left the Castle in a pod,” Coran answered, fingers flying over the holographic screens. “He turned off the alert system so no one would know he left. He can’t have gone to face Zarkon alone, can he?”

It was Melenor’s fear made reality. She tore out of the bridge without waiting for further detail, activating the zipline that would take her down to the speeder tunnel. As she dropped into the seat and it launched her toward the hangar, she prayed for it to move faster. It needed to move, she needed to _go_.

The Blue Lion was Melenor’s ship since Blaytz’s death. The Black Lion was locked away out of fear of Zarkon’s control, and the Yellow and Green would let no other pilots near after the passing of Gyrgan and Trigel. Blue was the only one that seemed to tolerate a pilot other than its Paladin, but it wasn’t to Blue that she went now. As the speeder reached the end of its trip and came to a stop she flew out of it and threw herself against the particle barrier firmly settled around Red.

“Please, _please_!” She was in borderline hysterics as she pounded on the barrier with both fists, tears of desperation beginning to sting her face. “I know you don’t think I’m worthy, but I need you! He’s gone and I need to find him! You’re the fastest and you’re linked to him, I know that you can sense where he is! Please, _help me_!”

A tick passed, two. Small eternities in the heat of panic, tiny little increments that seemed to stretch on forever. The Red Lion was the Lion of War, she wasn’t known for her tolerance or compassion, so when her particle barrier came down and her boarding ramp opened Melenor did not hesitate for fear of losing her chance. She darted into the cockpit and dropped herself into the seat, quickly adjusting a few controls to her own ability as the launch tunnel lit up for their exit.

“Thank you,” Melenor whispered as she felt the pressure of building speed, bracing herself for what she knew would be a bumpy ride. “Find him. Don’t worry about me or defense, just find him. Take out everything in our way, no hesitation, no mercy.”

She ramped the accelerator up to full tilt as soon as they passed the launch tunnel entrance and were out in open space. The sudden pick up in speed threw her back against the pilot seat and put pressure on her in ways she wasn’t used to from flying Blue, but she grit her teeth and bore it. Her attention was on the viewscreens, on the flashing red warnings and targets pinpointing upcoming Galra cruisers and strikers.

Once, not long ago, Melenor would have hailed these ships as a friend. She had sat in kinship at their emperor’s table, had invited him and his wife to meet her baby daughter. Her husband had loved this man like a brother, had shown only the utmost of loyalty even as the royal idiot had traipsed into dangerous territory in dealing with the rift.

The only way she hailed them now was with a rain of laserfire. Everyone always said that Alfor was the spitfire, that his wife was a calming temperance in his life. Those people didn’t know Melenor. She was a daughter of Lords and warriors, she had been raised from birth with sweet words of calm in her mouth but a sharpened sword in her hands. Now she had her hands on a weapon more dangerous than any sword or gun these soldiers had ever handled, and she would tear apart any one of them who dared get in her way.

There were a few that tried, but they didn’t last long. Red wasn’t Melenor’s Lion but in this moment, they shared a common rage. She was much faster than Melenor was used to so at some points her movements were jerky and awkward with the queen at the controls, but her nearly indestructible hull just meant that the occasional crash into the side of a cruiser hurt the Galra ship more than the Lion.

The path down to Altea’s atmosphere was littered with broken strikers and two torn apart cruisers by the time Melenor felt the deceleration of descent. Her viewscreen was lit up with a path, Red guiding her to Alfor. It led past the familiar countryside where Melenor had often taken Allura for picnics, over the once glorious capital city that now burned. The trail took her to the edge of the palace, its pristine white towers now charred and broken.

Zarkon—or at least that thing pretending to be Zarkon, both Alfor and Melenor knew their friend was gone—was not here. Melenor felt a surge of hope that there was still time, that she could drag her husband aboard his Lion and get him back to the Castle. He did not have to sacrifice himself to buy them time to escape, it didn’t have to be that way.

Red landed at the far end of the Bridge of Exaltations, the wide, high path that led from the main ground of the city to the palace entrance. The air was thick with smoke and the ground littered with rubble as Melenor disembarked, coughing a few times before she activated her face shield.

“Alfor? Alfor!” She was careful as she called out, trying to avoid calling the attention of any Galran soldiers who might be on patrol. They were sacking the city, killing anyone who hadn’t fled when Alfor had given the evacuation order. “Where are you, you damned fool? Alfor!”

She sped up, ignoring the danger of jogging through the low visibility as she followed the tracking beacon that Red displayed on her wrist monitor. He was close, somewhere here on the bridge. She was practically on top of him, so why didn’t he answer?

Melenor tripped and hit the ground rolling, grunting in irritation as she pushed herself up. She turned to scowl at the pile of rubble that had brought her to her knees only to choke off a scream.

“ALFOR!”

He lay prone on the ground, his cloak torn and his armor cracked and broken. His eyes were closed, his face covered in blood with more pooling under his body. Melenor crawled over, carefully rolling him over and hearing a noise of pain escape his lips.

“Alfor!” She called breathlessly, trying to wipe some of the blood away from his face with her gloved hands. He was alive, but only barely. He needed to get back to the Castle, back to a healing pod while he could. “What were you thinking, coming out here?”

An alarm went off on her wrist monitor, a warning from Red. She glanced at the screen, at the map of Galra cruisers swarming above the planet’s surface. They were beginning to change position, to line up in a military formation.

_They’re going to destroy Altea_ , Melenor realized with shock. A whole planet filled with people, they weren’t going to evacuate or allow escape. Zarkon meant to kill them all.

And there was nothing Melenor could do about it.

“Come on,” she whispered desperately, maneuvering Alfor’s limp body forward, up to his knees.

He was dead weight, especially with what was left of his armor, but she had no time to strip him down to make this easier. Melenor knelt and pulled his arms over her shoulders, and struggled to rise while bearing his weight.

“Red!” She called, stumbling forward in the direction she hoped the Lion waited. The smoke was still thick. “We need you!”

Melenor made it about three steps before the pillar she was passing exploded, showering her with debris and dust. She dropped Alfor and flattened herself to the ground as the storm of laserfire went off over her head, destroying the place where they would have been standing. Cursing, Melenor rolled a few yards to the side and drew her bayard.

The heavy bow she summoned would normally be useless against enemies that couldn’t be seen, but the common Galra didn’t seem to be aware of the tricks a Paladin had up their sleeve. The screen of her helmet lit up with a blue overlay, pinpointing the bodies moving around just out of the clouds of smoke. They showed up as blue and green shapes, cool against the hot backdrop of fire, with the warmest parts at their core.

Melenor aimed there, where the greens and blues faded into a warmer yellow. The center of the chest, the beating heart. She took them down one by one, rapid fire thanks to her weapon not needing to be reloaded. The bolts of quintessence that fired pierced armor and bone, and one by one the bodies firing in her direction dropped.

She might have felt a little bit bad killing soldiers who were just following orders, but she had no illusions. Zarkon was going to blow up this planet with so many of his people still here, she was doing them a kindness by putting them down before they died in the upcoming cataclysm.

She stowed her bayard and ran back to Alfor, leaning over him to check on his condition. He was still alive but she could only tell by the weak pulse, he gave no other outward signs. She didn’t think he was much longer for this world.

As Melenor began to position herself to lift him again she felt a searing pain in her side, the tearing sensation of laserfire hitting its mark and penetrating her under-armor. She fell to her knees, her mind a momentarily confused blank due to pain, and tried to draw her bayard again.

The Galra soldier broke through the smokescreen, leveling his weapon. All Melenor had time to do was throw herself over Alfor, knowing it would do nothing but having nothing else she could do.

The smoke parted in the wake of creaking metal as a huge, clawed paw cut through the shade and crushed the unsuspecting soldier underfoot. Melenor was saved from the sight of the gore-spattered ground as Red’s head appeared, her mounting ramp down and ready.

It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. Melenor was certain she was bleeding profusely as she forced herself to shaky feet, once again crouching down to wrap her husband’s arms around her shoulders. She only had to get him to the ramp, just had to get him into the ship. If she could just do that, she could take him out of here.

The smoke around them remained black, but suddenly it lit up like a thundercloud. The sounds that followed were deafening, the ground below them shaking. She knew, with a shot of dread, that there was no more time. Altea was being fired upon with all the power of a quintessence-fueled Galran military.

Melenor forced herself up. She struggled forward with Alfor’s weight hanging off her back, feeling steady metal replace the shaky bridge as she made her first step into Red. She had to pause before forcing another, and a third. It felt like an impossible task with her world crumbling around her.

Red lost patience. She shifted, sending Melenor and Alfor sprawling as she rose and closed her mouth. Melenor lay bleeding on the closed ramp, hugging Alfor against her as she felt them start to rise, quickly picking up speed. She had no idea what was going on outside, whether they were spotted or fired upon. Her sole focus was her husband, holding him close and doing her best to cushion him from being thrown around with her own body.

The noise was deafening even with her helmet, the sounds of a dying planet only fading away as the atmosphere thinned and they reached the blissful silence of space. Red put on speed, throwing them into the back of her mouth where Melenor’s head slammed against the metal. Her helmet absorbed most of the shock but the impact still left her dizzy.

The ride was wild and so was the sudden stop when they reached their destination. Obviously a giant robot wouldn’t understand how much care was needed with injured living things, sentient or not, but by the time they were completely still Melenor was wondering if Red even had a setting that let her fly normally. She patched her helmet comm into the Castle’s now that they were back in range, pushing herself up to her knees.

“Coran! Merla! Orla!” She stopped to cough as some of the soot from her helmet ended up in her face when she opened her protective screen. “Help! I need help in the Red Lion’s hangar! Please come quickly, Alfor is dying!”

She leaned over her husband’s body, rolling him over onto his back and starting to remove the cumbersome armor. Her hands were shaking and her vision was blurry, both from tears and the effects of losing blood. He was so pale, so still, no pulse under her fingers and no breath moving his chest. It was a small eternity before the clamor of boots filled the hangar, and someone came up behind her and pulled her away.

“Stop!” Melenor fought against the arms holding her, trying to return to Alfor’s side. “Please!”

“Melenor’s hurt!” Her younger sister’s voice rang out above the rest of the noise, her worried face appearing as she knelt in front of her and held her back with hands on her shoulders. “Somebody help me here! Mel, we need to get you to a healing pod.”

“Alfor—”

“He’s gone, Mel,” Orla said gently. “We need to take care of you.”

Melenor stopped fighting. She crumpled in on herself, covering her face with both hands. Barely more than a phoeb ago she was walking the palace gardens with Allura, waiting for Alfor to finish a meeting so they could all have lunch together. It was spring, the flowers were in bloom and the sun was warm. The system had been filled with light and life, and peace.

In the span of a movement it was all gone. Her precious little girl lay in an involuntary slumber in the Castle’s core, her husband dead a few feet away from her. Her people, her _planet_ , vaporized as she stood by, incapable of changing the course of events.

Her heart was broken, and she felt it. It was a physical pain that ran up the middle of her chest, sank into her joints and leached the warmth from her limbs. Melenor had never thought she would ever understand what it felt like to hate, but she did now. It seeped into her blood like a poison, giving her a bitter strength that rapidly spread to replace the fatigue of loss.

“Seal me up,” she murmured into her hands, her fingers clenching into fists. “Staple, sew, I don’t care. There’s no time for a healing pod, those animals cannot get these Lions or their Paladins. If any of them come near this ship, fire to kill.”

Orla didn’t argue. She was a General of Altea, she knew her duty to her people and her queen and she knew the importance of their mission. She helped Melenor to her feet, taking one arm while Merla, Melenor’s best friend, took her other. They led her out of the hangar, not looking back as the remaining guard began preparing to move Alfor’s body.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day_** :

Shiro stared at the projection screen in front of him, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. Lance’s face was familiar enough, even if it was disconcerting to see the usual grin gone and replaced with grim determination. But those red marks gracing his cheek bones, the half-moon shapes that matched Allura’s and Coran’s, those were a curve ball he hadn’t been expecting.

Pidge sat closest to him, working with her laptop to bring up the picture for them, while Keith paced like a wild animal in the back of the room. Hunk sat next to Pidge, and Coran and Allura sat on the other side of the table. Allura looked just as shocked as Shiro felt, so he knew that this was news to her as well.

“You’re telling me that Lance is Altean?” He finally managed, turning back to the group after staring at the picture for a full minute. “Lance. Lance McClain.”

“Altean descent,” Pidge corrected. “Ten thousand years’ worth.”

“Ten thousand years,” Shiro repeated. “That’s a lot of generations. Those genes should be wiped out by now, there shouldn’t be anything left for…this.”

He gestured vaguely to the image on the screen. Allura was still staring at it with her mouth hanging open. Coran was much less shaken.

“Well, I knew there was a reason I liked that boy straight away,” he decided, absently twirling his mustache.

“The human genome has tons of non-coding DNA,” Pidge brightened as the topic moved to something academic. “We have genes leftover from millions of years of evolution, just because it’s not showing up in the population doesn’t mean it’s not there. Humans probably aren’t capable of producing offspring who are actively Altean anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

“And we know that quintessence mutates stuff,” Hunk added. “Like those weird monsters Haggar was sending after us. On Red’s video you can see his bayard port malfunction and give him a big jolt of quintessence when he and Keith brought out Voltron’s wings. That much that fast might have been enough to spark some kind of change.”

“Then with trying to run quintessence through ourselves to charge the Lions and get that mech out into space, it might have been just enough to switch a couple genes on and start the flood gates opening,” Pidge finished. “We know it can change skin color in only seconds at high concentrations, it’s probably not a stretch to say the length of that battle could lead to major mutations. His brain was pretty much plugged in the whole time, all of us were.”

This was all much more than Shiro had expected when he woke up this morning. He pulled out a chair and finally sat down, absently running a hand through his hair while he tried to let it all sink in.

“Okay, well if—” he paused, looking over at Allura, changing around the words that had been about to come out a little to try and be gentler. “If the Blue Lion’s pilot passed away shortly after arrival, then who’s the Altean ancestor?”

“That would be Merla,” Coran spoke up when Allura didn’t seem to know the answer. He sighed softly, folding his hands on the table. He looked at her, then around the table. “I’m afraid the princess won’t be able to tell you much, she was still young and her parents shielded her from the war as long as they could.”

“But you were there too, and you know some things she doesn’t,” Keith added for him. Coran nodded, becoming unusually somber.

“Yes. You see, Merla was Honerva’s older sister. She, Honerva, and King Alfor all studied alchemy together in their early years, and Merla was one of the few alchemists besides King Alfor to travel to Oriande. One of the things she and Alfor learned there was that quintessence is life energy. But since most of space is empty, it pools on planets, and all life on these planets draws its quintessence from these pools. Things live, and when they die their essence returns to the pool. These small cores of life can be reborn many times, wrapped in different entities.”

“You’re talking about reincarnation,” Shiro frowned. “These quintessence cores sound like the concept of a soul in many human religions.”

“Something like that,” Coran supposed. “The core is the spark of life, but each living thing is made up of much more. It’s only a small piece.”

“I learned this in Oriande as well,” Allura said. “It was how I was able to remove Shiro’s essence from the Black Lion. This core of being holds many memories and personality traits from its incarnations, but it isn’t the whole person. It’s their life force and heart, the part of them that bonds and connects with other living things. Something like…a power source that comes along with some background software.”

“What does any of that have to do with Lance being Altean?” Keith asked impatiently. He was obviously not enamored with the direction the conversation was going.

“Quite a lot, actually!” Coran said brightly. “Hunk and Number Five probably aren’t completely human either!”

Coran looked proud of this declaration. Shiro caught Allura’s gaze, but she was obviously just as confused as the rest of them. Sometimes he forgot that she was technically the child and Coran was the adult in this pair.

“Care to elaborate?” Hunk asked.

“Well, one of the things Honerva’s research showed before she got paranoid and stopped sharing it was that like attracts like,” Coran explained. “Galra cores tend to be reborn as Galra, Altean cores tend to be reborn as Altean.”

“Hold on,” Allura said abruptly. She had an almost scandalized look on her face as she started to understand what Coran was saying. Shiro was glad somebody did, because he sure didn’t. “Are you trying to say that Merla and my mother brought the cores of the original Paladins to Earth?”

Okay, that was something Shiro understood. It was weird as hell, but he understood it.

“You’re saying the Paladins might be the _actual_ Paladins?” He asked, looking over at the other three. Keith was rolling his eyes, not buying it.

“When the war first broke out, King Alfor tried to pilot the Black Lion,” Coran nodded. “That was when he found out it had saved Zarkon’s essence when he died of overexposure in the rift. Some parts of him were left in his body when it was resurrected by those rift creatures, but his core was saved. When the other Paladins were killed, he found the same thing in their Lions.

“Since the Galra had suddenly become such a threat, he thought the best course of action would be to get the cores somewhere they could all eventually be reborn as a group, instead of flung across the universe. His original plan was to transfer them to the Red Lion and take them to a safe trade route planet where enough different species lived to make it work. But Zarkon attacked sooner than expected and he was killed.”

“Then how did they end up here?” Shiro asked. Honestly, the Paladins all being aliens explained a lot about them. Even if it was a bit hard to swallow.

“After King Alfor passed, Queen Melenor knew his plan was our best chance,” Coran answered, casting a glance at Allura. “She was the Blue Lion’s pilot at the time, but she wasn’t an alchemist. After they landed the Castle on Arus and put me into cryosleep, Merla went with her to handle the essences.”

“Earth was pretty far away from any intersystem trade routes back then,” Pidge frowned. “Melenor must have thought it wasn’t safe to take the Paladins anywhere close.”

“Maybe that’s why everything took ten thousand years,” Hunk reasoned. “If Alteans found Earth, other species must have made pitstops over time too. Ten thousand years to complete the whole set I guess, once the universe finally got its first half-Galra human over there.”

“You’re not honestly going to believe you’re the reincarnation of an alien that died ten thousand years ago, are you?” Keith asked, crossing his arms. “Look, I admit, there are a lot of weird things in this universe, but this is a little bit out there even for us. They’re saying the Black Lion is starting to read me as Zarkon because I _am_ Zarkon. They’re saying Lance is _Alfor._ ”

Shiro looked over at Coran and Allura and found her making a very strange face. Her eyes were wide and she had her mouth covered with a hand as she finally registered that fact now that Keith had said it out loud. At first he thought it was just because they were talking about her parents, until he remembered that the guy they were currently alleging was her father’s reincarnation had been flirting with her from the moment they’d met.

The conversation suddenly felt very awkward on top of the undercurrent of weirdness already running through it. Pidge’s eyes went wide then as she picked up on it as well, and then a second later the fact sank in for Hunk.

Everyone looked around at each other, but nobody said anything. They seemed to all decide without speaking that they just weren’t going to talk about that. Ever.

“Here, maybe this will help,” Allura finally blurted out to break the silence, motioning for Pidge to let her use the laptop. “I can show you something that might convince you.”

Pidge slide the computer across the table and Allura closed out the video of Lance. She pulled up the information they had been scanning through the other night from the Castle of Lions, searching through and highlighting a block of text:

                INITIATING IDENTITY SCAN_

                IDENTITY 1 CONFIRMED: ALFOR

                IDENTITY 2 CONFIRMED: ZARKON

                IDENTITY 3 CONFIRMED: TRIGAL

                IDENTITY 4 CONFIRMED: GYRGAN

                IDENTITY 5 UNCONFIRMED: UNKNOWN ORIGIN SPECIES _

“When you first arrived on Arus, the Castle of Lions scanned you in the foyer,” Allura stated. “If you had not already been in the system, you would not have been allowed to enter. It was designed to protect the Black Lion, and to only let the Paladins return. My father told me this, before the Galra attacked early, but I didn’t understand what it meant at the time. I only knew that whoever the Castle allowed to enter would become Paladins of Voltron.”

“You used this to assign us our Lions,” Pidge guessed. “Based on who had piloted them before.”

“Yes,” Allura confirmed . “I _thought_ the scan was just telling me that new Paladins who were very similar to the old ones had been found…that was why I said that you, and only you, could pilot the Lions. But I’d only just met you, all I had was my assumptions and the memories of departed friends.

“Hunk and Pidge were easy to place, I knew where they belonged as soon as I spoke to them. The rest were harder. Shiro obviously held himself as a leader, and he had a strong bond with Keith, who seemed to support him. I was certain they belonged in the Black and Red Lions, respectively.  Lance didn’t seem to me to be like any of the former Paladins,” she admitted. “I honestly thought in the beginning that he didn’t belong there. I thought he was the unknown factor and that he belonged in Blue because she was accepting of strangers.”

“Well, we know the Black Lion was still linked to those parts of Zarkon that were still left in his body,” Shiro pointed out. “I was having so many problems already, it was impossible to tell part of the issue was that I didn’t belong there I guess.”

“And Red almost let me die a couple times,” Keith remembered bitterly. “If any of this really is true, is that why she wouldn’t open up for me at all in the beginning? Because Lance was nearby and she was waiting for him? Why’d she let me pilot at all then?”

“I don’t know,” Allura shrugged slightly, showing that she wasn’t entirely sure of the Lions’ motivations. “The Lions themselves are an enigma even to me.”

“Well, we’re missing one,” Hunk reminded everyone. “Blaytz isn’t on that list. He was Blue’s original Paladin, right? Maybe the Red Lion just knew from reading all of us that her Paladin was comfortable in Blue and that Shiro was going to take Black, so she put up with Keith for a little while.”

“That begs another question,” Shiro’s head was starting to hurt a little bit, much like it often did when he had to think too much about aliens and space magic and all the painfully strange things that came along with acknowledging there was a universe outside of Earth. “What happened to Blue’s Paladin? Why did she open up for Lance at all if her Paladin should have been here?”

“Because he was Alfor maybe?” Pidge said thoughtfully. “He’s the one who made them, right? Maybe she just trusted him more than the rest of us. And she knew a Galra cruiser was coming, maybe she just took what she could get and ran while she could.”

“Or maybe her Paladin was too young at the time,” Hunk added. “Or too old. Or not born yet.”

Keith had lowered himself to sit in a chair at the far end of the table while they were talking. Now he suddenly sat up straight, looking around the room.

“My bag,” he said urgently. “Where’s my bag?”

“I moved it over by the door because you threw it in the middle of the floor like a heathen,” Shiro answered, nodding toward the messenger bag. “What’s wrong?’

“I think somebody else was in Blue’s cavern,” Keith answered, grabbing the bag and bringing it to the table.

He started to dig through it, then just completely upended it and dumped its contents across the table’s surface. He slapped pens and a notebook and a flashlight out of his way, sending stray dirt and rocks from their night spent in the caves flying everywhere. Hunk ducked back, shielding his eyes from dust, and Allura sneezed. Finally, Keith held up a pair of glasses, leaning across the table to practically shove them into Pidge’s face.

“Are these yours?”

“Uh, no,” Pidge answered, leaning back to get a better look at them. “I don’t wear glasses, remember? I just keep Matt’s for good luck. Those are too dirty to even see out of, where did you get them?”

“They were on the floor of the cavern, under some rocks I moved to get a clearer picture of the glyphs,” Keith said. “Meaning, they were already there when Blue broke through the wall and covered them with dirt. And since none of us wear glasses and they’re not yours, they had to be there before we got there.”

“You think Blue’s Paladin was there before us and lost them?” Pidge asked excitedly, holding them up in the light. “The glass is all cloudy, they must’ve been there for a while. I’m surprised they’re not broken, they’re kind of cheap and flimsy.”

Shiro got a good look at the glasses as she turned them and froze. She flipped them over in her hands a few times, as if the thin golden frames would yield some kind of clue to their owner.

“They’re not cheap or flimsy,” he choked out, reaching to take the glasses out of her hands. He looked down at them, recognizing them immediately. “They’re Michael Kors.”

“How do you know?” Pidge asked, raising an eyebrow. “There’s no label.”

Shiro looked up at her, and around the table at all the others. Everyone was looking at him expectantly, but he couldn’t easily explain. He felt a sharp pain in his chest and the room suddenly felt suffocating, he couldn’t breathe.

“Because I bought them as a Christmas present,” he said curtly, rising quickly. “Excuse me, I need some air.”

Keith reached out to him as he passed but Shiro ducked to the side, pulling the meeting room door closed firmly behind him to dissuade anyone from following. He walked quickly down the hall and out the door into the courtyard there, past the area where people came to smoke on breaks and down to the other end of the building. He didn’t stop until he’d turned the corner, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. His fingers closed tightly around the glasses in his hand, feeling the familiar metal frames digging into his skin.

These were Adam’s glasses. Shiro would know them anywhere, he’d had to special order them. They were anti-glare glasses, non-prescription, for protecting the eyes against the constant onslaught of blue light from computers and tablets.

He knew he had to calm himself and go back in there. They needed to discuss this, to figure out what it meant. Keith thought these glasses belonged to the person who was meant to be the Blue Lion’s Paladin, but Shiro needed him to be wrong.

Shiro needed Keith to be wrong, because if he wasn’t it meant the reason Adam spent so many weekends hiking in the cliffs was because he’d sensed something there. It meant Adam had found the Blue Lion at some point, and that he was supposed to be with those four kids when they left Earth. It meant that Adam, an officer who would have been called immediately to active duty on the night Shiro had returned, had missed joining the others by only a few hours. Because Shiro had been considered “good enough” as a fifth pilot in the face of an oncoming Galra cruiser.

Shiro needed Keith to be wrong, because if he wasn’t it meant Adam had only still been on Earth to die because of him.


	18. Chapter 18

Lance sat on the cool floor of his cell, scraping marks into the metal with the steel cap of his water bottle. His left wrist ached under its wrapping and his face hurt a little, but he was clean and bandaged and had been allowed to sleep through last night. He’d even been given two full meals today along with the other captives, as gross as they were, and the fog was finally lifted from his brain.

It was night again, or as close to night as it got down here in the holding cells. Somewhere up in the rest of the station, the outpost had probably orbited around the planet below and into its shadow. Everything was quiet and the comings and goings of daytime had ceased, but Lance didn’t know how long that would last. He had no idea how long day and night were here, he was still running on his internal clock from Earth.

“So this Sincline they’re after is like a mix between Voltron and that Altean mech,” James said. He was sitting against the corner of the bars in his cell, tossing his own bottle cap up into the air.

“Yeah. It breaks down into three separate ships. But they’re not alive like the Lions, and it can be piloted by just one person.”

“And it punches holes in spacetime.”

“Yup. It can go in and out of the quintessence field really easy. Well, with the side effect of opening gaping hell portals that can spread and destroy the known universe.”

They were discussing their options, going over their reasons for being held here and trying to gauge their captors’ next moves.  It was difficult, since there seemed to be more than one party involved. Acxa and Natille were clearly at odds, and Lance had no idea how much attention to any of this Haggar was actually paying. They also had no idea if the SOS Lance had sent out had been received, or if it was helping to find them at all.

“So what’s the point of putting a hole in spacetime if it’s just going to destroy you in the end anyway?” James asked.

“Have you ever tried reasoning with a super villain?” Lance snorted. “It doesn’t work. Everyone running this empire is a nutjob.”

They heard the door to the block open and fell quiet, expecting a guard to be making rounds. Instead, whoever had entered seemed to be walking very quietly and lightly, taking time to look into each cell. Lance was just wondering what new crazies they might have to deal with when the visitor reached the end of the block and came into view. Lance glanced up at him indifferently, then did a double take when he realized he was looking at a human face.

“Adam!” Lance and James both surged to their feet.

James had told Lance about his encounter in the arena, and that he hadn’t really gotten the chance to speak to the older pilot before they were separated. Lance had honestly thought James was just imagining things in the wake of a very stressful event, he hadn’t dared to hope that Adam was really here.

But he was. He was here, and real, and alive.

Lance felt his eyes sting as he reached through the bars of his cell to pull Adam close, feeling the taller man hug him back just as tightly. It was uncomfortable with the hard metal bars in between them but he was in no hurry to let go.

Adam didn’t feel like he’d changed much. He was still almost a head taller, still slim, still healthy and strong. He had been a bit softer before and was more lean muscle now, and he had about a year’s worth of beard growth and a ridiculous ponytail. His eyes also glinted very weirdly in the faint light.

“You look like a homeless viking,” Lance sniffled against him. “What’s up with your eyes?”

“That’s still three levels better than I feel like I look, so I’ll take it,” Adam laughed. “They’re implants. I’m not a robot impostor, I promise. They do a lot of medical experiments on the prisoners here, my eyes got wrecked in the invasion. They basically dug out the broken irises and lenses and dropped in electronic replacements.”

“I thought you were dead,” Lance said, giving Adam one last, tight squeeze before letting him go and looking up at him. “The only thing actually wrong with you is robot eyes, and we all thought you were dead! Your picture’s on the memorial wall and everything, they said your plane was blown up!”

“A plane was blown up, but it wasn’t mine,” Adam moved to lean against the wall between the two cells, so he could look back and forth between them. Aside from the desperate need for a salon and a decent number of arena scars visible on his bare arms, he really didn’t look all that terrible. “A pilot in my unit was flying in tight formation with me. She went up in a fireball and I went through it, nicked the side of a cruiser and went down when I lost a wing. My plane probably ended up a burnt wreck, but I ejected.”

He slid down the wall to sit cross-legged on the floor. Lance did the same, leaning up against the bars so he could reach through and hold Adam’s hand. He was almost afraid that if he let him go for too long the other man might disappear, that this might turn out to be a dream or one of the Natille’s woven fantasies. He definitely felt real, in a way none of the things forced through his head had felt, but Lance still didn’t trust everything he saw yet.

“You got taken right in the first wave then,” James had dropped back down to the floor as well, facing them. “That’s been more than a year and a half. But Earth’s free now…Sam Holt got the Atlas flying, and the MFEs are all functional. There’s an entire coalition of planets Earth’s part of, plus Lance’s weirdo crew and their space robot.”

Adam smiled, the kind of genuinely happy smile Lance could tell hadn’t graced his face in a very long time. And he couldn’t blame him, Lance had only been here a week or so and he had already been sure he’d never smile again.

“We definitely didn’t hear about Earth being freed here,” Adam told them. “Word came down that Sendak was dead, but not how. They have this creepy witch here, Haggar, she basically runs everything but she’s got an idiot named Throk acting as a puppet leader. She moved him in as soon as Sendak was out, but from what I hear there’s a handful of people below him who are just waiting for her to be gone a little too long so they can shoot him out an airlock and take his place. The Galra are very overdramatic around here.”

“Where do they keep you?” Lance asked, frowning. “I know you haven’t been in this cell block. Is that thing around your neck to keep you here instead of a cell?”

“You’re more observant than you used to be,” Adam grinned, lightly touching the collar on his neck. “Yeah. The Galra are just like anyone else, the longer prisoners are here the more attached they get. Me and two others have been here for more than a year each, we’ve basically become the two-legged version of outpost cats. Ryla runs the long-term block, it’s a dead end job so she doesn’t care where we go as long as we’re back in holding in the morning. But we can’t go past certain points or zap.” He made a ‘poof’ motion with his free hand. “Dead.”

“How far can you go?” James asked. “I’m guessing they don’t let you get far, and that there’s no weapons you can get ahold of in your wandering range.”

“The outpost is made up of hubs,” Adam answered. “They’re thrown together out of scrap and attached by hallways. I can’t leave the arena hub, and the only weapons here are kept in lockers that are sealed up tight between fight rounds. I also can’t go higher than the second level. There are five levels in this hub, but that Haggar lady has three sealed off for whatever she does up there.

“In theory, I could probably find a way out when the collar’s off and get out of here on one of the cargo ships that are always docking. I just…never had anywhere to go.”

It was a very sobering admission. Lance had been through a lot, but he’d never been in a bad position he had no drive to escape from simply because there was no place to escape to. He’d always had Earth in the back of his mind for the long run, the Castle of Lions in the immediate. Even after the Castle was gone, Lance had experienced enough of the universe to have hundreds of friendly planets to aim for if necessary.

He had never been in a situation where there simply was no better option than captivity. But Adam hadn’t had any of those options, he didn’t know anything about the galaxies beyond Earth and as far as he knew Earth had been occupied. At least here he was guaranteed a survivable environment…until something killed him in the arena.

“Well you have somewhere to go now,” Lance said firmly. “We’re getting out of here and we’re going back home. We just have to figure out how to get out of lockdown and put some space between us and this outpost, if I can get my hands on a radio at that point it will be easy to track down a coalition ship.”

“How did you even get here?” Adam asked, looking back and forth between them. “Even while Sendak was running things right after the invasion I only ever saw one other human come through here.”

“A friend of Haggar’s,” James muttered. “They’re trying to pry information out of Lance so she can get her hands on a giant robot that can break holes in reality. It’s floating somewhere in the magical space between universes.”

Adam looked over at James, then back to Lance.

“It’s more technical than that, but the man’s not wrong,” Lance said helpfully.

“I guess I’ve heard weirder,” Adam said slowly. “I have a West Virginian brother-in-law. But you did get back home at some point? Is your family okay? What about Hunk and Pidge? Christ Lance, the last time I saw your face it was because Colleen Holt plastered you all across every TV station she could find.”

“We all got home,” Lance assured him. He noticed Adam asked about the Garrison students who had disappeared that night, but not about Shiro. “Hunk and Pidge are great, all of our families are fine. Keith was with us! You know, the dropout? We found his mom, she’s a Galra and part of this like, secret ninja society! And we brought back a princess and a teleporting wolf. Dude, space is _wild_.”

“Glad to hear it. But space is also dangerous,” Adam pointed out, looking thoughtfully at the bars to their cells. He nodded toward the lock pads on the walls beside the gates. “We have to find a way to get you guys out of here. These things don’t have any keys I can steal, just those lock screens. They only seem to work for Galra and those weird pointy-eared people that come and go.”

“We’re going to have to kidnap a Galra or an Altean, then. Or, I’ve seen them work with Galra tech,” Lance perked up a little, leaning forward to look across the way at James. “Maybe your foot.”

“And how am I supposed to get my foot up there, exactly?” James asked. “How many extra joints do you think I have? My legs do not bend that way.”

“Come on, just try!”

“Just try?” James hauled himself up from the floor and raised a leg, pressing his foot up high on the wall. He wasn’t quite as flexible as Lance, but he was no slouch either. He gestured to his joints. “This is an ankle. This is a knee. These are literally the only two parts of my leg that bend, genius, and there’s no way they’re bending to get this foot on that access pad. Why don’t you try?”

“Because I don’t have any Galra tech!” Lance shot back, getting up as well. He gestured to himself, and his very human and non-prosthetic body parts. “What do you want me to use? Magic? Sure, here, I’ll try some magic. Just for you, Griffin.”

He reached through his bars and pressed his hand to the access pad of his cell. It beeped and the light turned green. The bars slid open.

Lance stared at his hand, then at the bars. He looked at the other two, who both looked as shocked as he was.

“What the hell did you do?” James demanded.

“Nothing!” Lance protested. “I just put my hand on it! Like this!”

He stepped forward into the walkway and pressed his hand to the lock of James’ cell. The scene repeated, the light turning green and the bars sliding open.

“I guess you’re a wizard, Harry,” Adam cracked, leaning over to look at the small screen. The words that came up on everything were Galran, of course, and Lance didn’t understand them. Adam seemed to though, thanks to his extended stay. “It doesn’t say anything special, just something like “door is now open, press again to close.” No details.”

“Maybe instead of sitting around wondering what glitch caused it we should just get the hell out of here,” James suggested. He was already on his way down to the end of the cell block. “Before it stops working or gets fixed!”

There were no others in any of the cells they passed, they had been taken to the arena and none had come back. James reached the door first and tried, but nothing happened. He move to the side to let Adam open it, since he obviously knew this door's entry code to get in here, but Adam gestured for Lance to try. Lance shrugged and pressed his hand to the pad, and the door slid quietly open.

“It must run on Stupid,” James said, looking over at Lance. “If that’s the case, you could probably get us anywhere on this outpost.”

“Too bad it doesn’t run on Ugly, you’d actually be of some use,” Lance shot back. Griffin glared at him, and Lance gave him a serene smile. They were both about to step out into the hallway when Adam grabbed them and pulled them back.

“Two night guards are on rounds down here,” Adam whispered. “Everybody’s locked in cages and we have the shock collars, so they usually sneak around to an empty office to play some kind of Galran card game. Even so, be careful. Let me go first, they expect to see me wandering.”

He stepped out into the hallway first and moved ahead several yards before motioning for them to follow. It was difficult for Lance to recognize anything since his head had been forced back so far when he’d first arrived, but he knew they hadn’t come far. After a moment Adam came to an open room and motioned for them to stop. He moved to lean in the doorway, blocking the view out into the hall.

“Who’s winning?” He asked brightly.

“Crykt, you scared me!” A male voice came from the room. “Thought you were the supervisor. I’m gonna put a damn bell on you one of these days.”

“You still wouldn’t hear it, I swear you’re half deaf,” a female voice said. Leaning in further, Adam motioned with one hand for them to creep by.

“I wasn’t trying to sneak, I just saw the light and thought I’d poke my head in,” Adam told them. Lance and James flattened themselves against the far, dark wall, scooting past as quietly as they could and moving ahead. “Enjoy your game.”

“Hold on!” The female Galra called as Adam backed out and started to follow the others. He froze, and Lance grabbed James and dragged him back against the wall as a soldier stepped into the hall. She held out something for Adam to take. “We had extra from my husband’s birthday. I assume your kind can eat it without a problem.”

“Oh. Thank you!” Adam smiled charmingly as the Galra stepped away and went back into the room. “I appreciate it!”

He waited to see that she was sitting down to go back to her game, then jogged ahead to join the other two. Lance looked at the small bag in his hand, raising an eyebrow.

“What was that all about?”

“I told you, it’s sort of like being a house cat,” Adam answered with a mix of fondness and annoyance as he held it up so Lance could see. It was a bunch of colorful spheres, obviously some kind of candy. “The regulars give me degrading nicknames and bring me treats I don’t want, and I daydream about smothering most of them. So…exactly like being a cat, really.”

They reached the end of the hall, where stairs led up to the next level. They stopped here to get a look at the collar Adam wore, which unfortunately wouldn’t respond to Lance’s fingerprint. This, however, was something James’ prosthetic leg actually could help with, after a little bit of creative twisting and bending. When it fell away they shoved it into a trash can they passed, and Lance unlocked the door that would let them go upstairs.

“We’re going up to the third level now, right?” James asked. “Have you been up there?”

“No, it’s one of Haggar’s,” Adam answered. “I don’t know the layout up there. But when they come and go they’re always cloaked, I don’t think they want to be seen by the Galra. I only even know what they look like because my eyes are upgraded. My guess would be that they have their own supply ships and loading docks, I can’t imagine any of them strolling into one of the mess halls here, so up is probably where we’ll find a way out.”

“I’ll go first then,” James decided, tapping his prosthetic foot on the ground. “This thing has some pretty fancy tricks itself. It seems to work a lot like that sonar imaging your Paladin gun did, McClain.”

“Okay, well, I have no magic tricks except apparently being able to open doors, so by all means,” Lance was more than happy to let James go first. If he screamed, or exploded, or caught fire, they knew to run back the other way.

James crept on ahead and Lance stayed back with Adam, giving him a few minutes to try and use his new toy to map where anyone might be. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall, looking up at the other pilot.

“Hey. So, you didn’t ask about Shiro,” Lance said carefully. “Even though I’m guessing Sam Holt told you he was still alive.”

Adam was looking up the stairs at James, but he pulled his gaze down to Lance. He was a man with an expressive face, he always had been, but at the moment Lance couldn’t read him. Not because he was stoic, but because it was an expression he’d never seen on Adam before.

“Well, it’s been around six years since we broke up and Takashi left,” Adam said finally, looking back up at James. “I’ve had a lot on my mind in the last year, I guess I’ve just gotten over him and moved on. I don’t have any reason to ask about him.”

James gave them the all clear sign and Adam bound up the stairs. Lance frowned and followed, wishing he knew what to say. He often forgot that people they loved had suffered without them for three years longer than they’d experienced, but he’d never thought that would matter for Adam and Shiro. Lance had never really known the particulars, he had never pried into Adam’s personal life, but he’d known Adam had a boyfriend and he’d known he was head over heels in love.

It was the kind of love Lance had been looking for ever since he’d learned it wasn’t just something from storybooks. To find out that it could just _end_ , to find out someone could just stop loving like that, it seemed impossible. Wasn’t that kind of thing supposed to surpass time and space? Adam must have noticed his face as he caught up with them. As they stepped out into an empty hallway he softened a little.

“What about you? Did you manage to hook yourself a nice alien girlfriend while you were in space?”

“Uh, sort of,” Lance mumbled. James was a few steps ahead of them, he overheard him and snickered.

It was then Lance realized James must have been able to see everything the Alteans had been letting Acxa view in his head over the course of several days, including some very intimate images of himself and Keith.

“Well that’s something, right?” Adam pressed. “Is she pretty?”

“Surprisingly pretty, I guess,” Lance said evasively. James made a choking sound this time as he tried not to laugh outright. Lance gave him a hard kick in the prosthetic shin. “Shut up, man!”

“What?” Adam looked between them, confused. “What am I missing here?”

“ _He_ is weirdly pretty. McClain recently moved out of Narnia, got himself a place in San Francisco,” James quipped. He ducked around Adam before Lance could reach him. Adam frowned, perplexed for a moment, then covered his mouth with one hand when he got it to try and hide his smirk.

“Oh. _Oh._ I see.”

“Stop smirking. I’m a war hero, you know,” Lance told them severely, pointing between the two of them. “I don’t need this kind of disrespect from you two.”

“Okay, okay,” Adam held his hands up in surrender and they started walking again, falling quiet. It lasted only a few seconds before he audibly bit back a laugh of his own. “So, ah, you prefer uptown, or downtown?”

“Adam! Come on! This is a serious situation!” Lance hissed. “We could all die at any second!”

“Koreatown,” James whispered.

“Oh,” Adam’s smile faded and he looked mildly disappointed. There was only one person Lance and Adam both knew who that could refer to. “Come on Lance, not Kogane! He’s a delinquent! And apparently an alien! I knew you had a weird…thing…where he was concerned, but you can do so much better! He’ll probably be in jail on felony charges in a few years.”

“No, it’s okay, he has a job now!” Lance answered, coming to a stop as they reached what looked like an elevator next to another stairway. “He’s back in the military, he’s a Lieutenant. He’s got an apartment and a roommate and a dog.”

“Possibly stupid question, but why is his last name Japanese if he’s Korean?” James wondered.

“He has anger management issues,” Adam ignored James. “They don’t go away, you know. The first time I _ever_ hear you say a bruise you have is from running into a door, I’m calling the cops.”

“You might want to hold off on that, I literally almost broke my nose on a glass door last week,” Lance warned, pressing his hand to the lock pad. “And his dad’s last name was originally Kim, but his grandmother remarried a Japanese guy named Kogane when his dad was still a kid. Can we please focus less on Keith and more on surviving the night?”

This floor had been empty so far, all the doors that lined the halls closed. Lance doubted it was going to be the same as the went further up, somebody was definitely bound to be out and about no matter what the time. He motioned for James to go do his thing, but after few minutes he came back shaking his head.

“There’s something going on up there,” James told them, looking up the empty stairwell. “It starts about halfway up, whatever sensors are in this thing stop working. Whatever Haggar does here, it she’s got it under extra security. I don’t think it’s safe to keep going up.”

“Well, there’s definitely no loading dock access on this floor,” Adam said, looking back the way they’d come. “It looks like offices or quarters. If we go back, we should hit a hallway heading to another hub eventually. Maybe we should go try our luck somewhere else.”

Lance looked down the hall, then back up the stairs. Somewhere up there, Acxa and Haggar were planning on retrieving the Sincline and wreaking havoc on the universe. So far they didn’t have enough information, but there was no telling whether they might figure out what they needed without him. He had to know how close they were, and what else they might be working on here that could spell trouble for the Coalition. And for Earth.

He’d never forgive himself if it turned out he was so close to stopping something terrible but had turned around and run.

“You guys go,” he decided. “Griffin, that prosthetic of yours should be able to open the doors, and I don’t want to hear you can’t get your foot up that high. Get to a dock, find a ship. I’ll be ten minutes behind you, tops, but if I’m not there by then go anyway. And don’t even wait that long if it’s not safe.”

“You’re not seriously going to go up there,” James frowned. “McClain, we have no weapons, no armor, and no idea what’s up there. At least if we head back, Wolfe knows where some weapons lockers are. We actually have a chance of getting out of here if we go now.”

“Yeah, I know, so _go_ ,” Lance answered, annoyed. “Sorry, I have to check this out. It’s a Paladin thing. Ten minutes, I’ll be right behind you.”

He turned quickly and crept up the stairs before they could say anything else, trying to avoid further argument. Of course he wanted to get out of here, of course he wanted to go home, but whether he wanted it or not things like this had become his duty. It wasn’t piloting a Lion that made him a Paladin, it was being part of Team Voltron. And this was just what his team did.

At the top of the stairs was another hallway, this one brightly lit. It wasn’t lined with closed doors, either, the far wall was clear and gave a view of the sleeping planet below. As Lance took a few steps further from the stairs he found the inner wall of the hallway was half glass as well, and dropped down to hide before anyone in the big room inside saw him.

When nobody sounded the alarm about an intruder, he slowly rose to peek inside. It looked a lot like the Castle’s hangar had while Lotor and Allura were working on the Sincline, a weird mix between a laboratory and a mechanic’s workshop. There was nobody inside, so he moved quickly and quietly down a few yards to the doorway and reached for the lock pad.

When he stopped something slammed into him and he screamed. A hand slapped over his mouth to quiet him, and he glared back as he realized it was just James. With Adam right behind him.

“I told you two to go!” He hissed.

“We’re not ditching you,” James hissed back. “We have to stay together. If we’re gonna do dumb shit, we have to do it as a group.”

“Okay, fine, but my name goes first on our Darwin Award plaque,” Lance grumbled, unlocking the door. It slid open silently and they stepped inside, looking around.

“Loading dock,” Adam said quietly, nodding toward the far end of the room. There was nothing there at the moment, but there were two visible airlocks spaced far enough apart that they could each probably handle a supply shuttle.

“Doesn’t look like anybody’s home,” James commented, wandering over to some empty tubes on the wall. “Somebody please tell me these don’t look like they’re made to shove people in for experiments.”

“That one? No,” Lance joined him. “This one is a healing pod, like the Castle had. This other one, I’m not sure. But it looks like the tubes Romelle described from Lotor’s fake colony. They were used to drain quintessence from Alteans.”

“This place is like a weird lab,” Adam said from where he was examining some shelves. Some had notebooks, some had what looked like Altean artifacts. “What are they doing up here?”

“Nothing good,” Lance answered. He stepped away from the tubes and went to look at the floor in the middle of the room, at the different material used here and the old scratches and stains. “They’re launching things from here. Something parks here, and probably comes and goes from those airlocks. Maybe transport to and from the planet below?”

“Guys? Maybe transport through that.”

James had made his way to the far side of the room, to the window there. Lance and Adam joined him, looking out at the wormhole a short distance from the outpost. It didn’t seem to shift or change like the ones Lance had seen Allura make, it looked frozen in place. Even as they watched it remained open, like a permanent fixture in space.

But it wasn’t quite like any wormhole Lance had seen before. Aside from a slight shimmer, they could clearly see through it to the other side. And what he saw gave him a chill.

“They repaired the rift gate,” he breathed, leaning further to practically press against the glass as if that would help him see better. “That’s not possible, we blew that thing into pieces. It was scattered in Daibazaal’s orbit.”

The gate floated in open space now, currently sealed closed. But even as they watched, the heavy metal doors cracked and slid open, flooding the area with an intense light that shone through the wormhole to the outpost. Lance shielded his eyes until the rift gate closed again, what looked like a small pod now drifting powerlessly in space near it.

A larger ship came into view to pull the pod inside, one Lance also recognized. It seemed that Haggar had been spending a lot of time resurrecting dead ships.

“That’s Lotor’s cruiser,” Lance sputtered. “I thought they wrecked that thing!”

“Well they fixed it, and it’s heading back here,” James pointed out as the cruiser headed through the wormhole and toward the outpost. “We probably shouldn’t be here when it gets here.”

“Who’s Lotor?” Adam asked, still staring out the window even as Lance and James each grabbed one of his arms and dragged him back.

“Bad man,” Lance answered. “Bad, bad man. Dead man, thank God. Terrible hair, no matter what anyone says. Come on, we have got to _go_.”

They made a run for the door, but it opened just before they reached it. Natille stood there, along with three other armed Altean soldiers. Behind them, standing taller than them all, was a dark-skinned Altean woman wearing a metal headpiece with a gold jewel. Lance had only seen her in passing before, but the deep red streaks that ran down her cheeks and across her lips like scars told him who she was.

Wordlessly, he grabbed Adam and James and backed away. He didn’t stop as the Altean group came further into the room, until they were backed against the far window with nowhere else to go.

“I know the pastel tomboy,” James whispered, “who’s the Amazon?”

“That’s Haggar,” Lance warned. “If she so much as looks at you too hard, run. Just…run, don’t let her get close.”

He had never had to face off against her, but Shiro and Allura had. Shiro had been lucky enough to have his Galra enhanced arm, and technically be an experiment Haggar hadn’t wanted to kill. Allura could tap quintessence and defend herself. All they had was the very human tendency to be more trouble than they were worth if they really tried hard enough.

“Her name is Empress Honerva,” a tanned male Altean standing next to Natille informed them. He seemed to be in charge of the soldiers, who he motioned to step forward. “And you’re in a restricted area.”

Lance flattened himself back against the window as the soldiers came forward, tensing as they were grabbed and pulled forward. The large room started to fill with noise as the cruiser reached the outpost, an arm extending to attach to the airlock doors.

“Sorry, we got lost looking for the cafeteria,” Adam said to the guard as they were dragged across the lab toward the group of Alteans. “Up, down, it’s all the same in space. We can show ourselves out though, thanks.”

“Who opened the doors?” Natille demanded, looking between the three of them. “Who let you in here?”

Lance immediately pointed past Adam to James. When he looked over, he found James pointing right back at him.

“Oh, real nice,” Lance said sarcastically. “Just throw me under the bus.”

“You mean the bus you’re apparently driving, traitor?” James shot back.

Adam slapped both of their hands down and shot an annoyed look between them. Lance made an “I’m watching you” motion at James, who gave him the finger in return. Natille pointed at Lance, and he found himself hauled forward to stand in front of the group. He tensed when Honerva—he was absolutely _not_ going to call this crazy witch “Empress” anything—grabbed his chin and tilted his head up. She dug her nail into his skin to hold him still in a way that reminded him of his abuela’s church friends, only far less pleasant.

“This one is the Paladin.”

“Ex-Paladin.” Lance knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he wanted to make it clear that there was nothing of use they could get from him. “No Lion to give you. No bayard. Not part of the team anymore. Just kind of here, so sorry to waste your time.”

She didn’t even blink. Definitely scarier than his abuela’s church friends.

“You’re the one who won’t cooperate with my druids. You’ve cost me three pilots.”

The air lock opened and she let his face go when she felt him turning to look. Three more Alteans filtered in, followed by a small pod on a motorized trailer. It was just a two-seater, barely half the size of an MFE. One hooked a computer to it and began overriding its controls, forcing the canopy to open and give them access to the pilot.

All he could tell at first was that it was female. She was completely limp as they maneuvered her out and onto a stretcher, fully covered in her gear. When they pried her helmet off Lance sucked in a breath of air in spite of himself. Her hair had gone an ashen, unnatural gray, and her eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. He could tell from the position of her face and the way her mouth hung open even though he couldn’t see her irises, both eyes were glowing brightly with little sparks like embers floating up away from her face. What had once been blue Altean face marks were jagged lightning bolts across her face and down her neck.

“Overexposure.” Lance jumped when Acxa spoke. He hadn’t even noticed her approach. “Too long in the rift does it. The quintessence running through them gets to be too much, the body shuts down and they die.”

Lance had to force himself to look away as they covered the body with a sheet. Honerva was still looking at him, unmoved and unchanged. He focused on Acxa, she freaked him out less.

“So what does that have to do with me?” Lance wished his voice had been stronger, hadn’t belied how scared he was right now. He tried to make up for it by standing up tall and attempting to keep a stoic face. What Shiro would do if he were here, or Keith. “Last I checked, I wasn’t shoving pilots into the rift.”

“They’re attempting to find the Sincline, you know that,” Acxa said harshly. “We have the point of entry, but the rift is just another extension of space. They don’t know which direction to go in, and you won’t let them see more of the last moments of the battle.”

“Again, I’m not the one shoving unprepared pilots into the rift,” Lance answered through clenched teeth. “Which you’ve obviously managed to open, so you don’t even need Sincline.”

He made the mistake of glancing back at Honerva, who was still looking at him in a way that made him very uncomfortable. Something in her face sparked realization, and he suddenly felt like a complete idiot. He closed his eyes, wanting to kick himself.

“You don’t care about Sincline, you want what’s in it.” He opened his eyes and looked back at Acxa. “You’re looking for Lotor. If he's somehow alive you can put the empire back together.”

“And people say you’re the dumb one,” Acxa answered.

“They do,” Lance agreed. His fear started to coalesce into something else as he reached a point of numbness. There was only so afraid he could get before his guard went up and his defenses kicked in, and he was reaching that point. “Too bad nobody informed you that I’m also the petty one. I hope his corpse rots in that rift, I’d rather go back to having my limbs sawed off than let you back in my head for his sake.”

“It can be arranged,” Natille offered.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Honerva finally spoke up. She was _still_ looking at him in that unnerving way, making his skin crawl. “I don’t need anything else from his mind. He’s going to go retrieve what I want for me.”

“Yeah, if I didn’t think you were cracked before, you just convinced me with that one,” Lance answered, shaking his head. He wasn’t exactly hysterical, but he had very strong feelings about Lotor and Sincline, and he made no attempt to stop them from clouding his judgement when he spoke. “No. Absolutely not. Just kill me now, because you’re wasting both of our time.”

“Put the other two in the unblocked airlock,” Honerva ordered.

“Oh please don’t tell me I’m part of the other two,” James groaned as he and Adam were grabbed. They fought against the soldiers who dragged them across the big room and shoved them into the airlock. Lance tried to go after them but Acxa and a tall Altean held him back. “Dammit, we’re definitely the other two!”

“What are you doing?” Lance demanded, pulling free from Acxa’s hold to whirl around and face Honerva. “Let them out of there, this is between you and me!”

“They’ll be free in one varga,” Honerva answered indifferently. “Into the station if the Sincline is here again, out into space if it isn’t.”

“Lance,” Adam called warningly, muffled by the airlock glass. “Don’t do it!”

Lance looked between Honerva and the other two pilots, his fingers curling into frustrated fists. His breathing felt shallow as he started to panic, not sure what he was supposed to do with two lives on the line. He looked over at the pod, which had now been unloaded from the trailer and positioned to take off, and at the other airlock that was disconnecting from the cruiser.

“McClain!” James was shaking his head and making a cutting gesture with his arms, trying to dissuade him from reckless action. “Don’t! It’s not worth helping them with whatever they’re planning to do!”

Lance pulled his gaze away from the airlock and turned to glare at Honerva. The corner of her mouth was turned up very slightly, she knew she was winning here.

“You’ve intrigued me by getting in here, otherwise you’d all be dead already,” she said calmly. “Now impress me, and I’ll extend that courtesy a little longer.”

Lance took a deep breath, and turned to run toward the pod. He ignored Adam and James yelling at him to stop, scooping up the dead pilot’s helmet as he passed and jumped up onto the low wing, using it as a springboard to drop into the cockpit. He let out a litany of angry curses in Spanish as he started powering the pod up, yanking the helmet on and making sure it sealed against the high neck of the prisoner’s uniform he wore.

He honestly doubted it would matter much if he had a flight suit or not, he was probably about to end up dead either way.

The canopy was starting to close as somebody dropped into the second seat beside him, Acxa adjusting her own helmet and pulling on the harness. He shot her an annoyed glare as he started to taxi the pod toward the now-clear second airlock, moving it through the inner doors and waiting impatiently for them to close.

“I’m not suffering enough?” He asked, powering up the engines as the outer doors finally began to open. “Now I have to spend my last minutes with you?”

“Be glad you have me, you have no idea what you’re heading into,” Acxa answered. “The other three pilots had training for this.”

“I’ve been through this before, I don’t need training.”

“In Voltron, not a pod.”

Lance steered away from the outpost, heading for the open wormhole. He’d never flown anything out in open space except a Lion, this thing was small and light and handled a bit like an MFE. But there was no resistance or gravity out here, he almost overshot the wormhole before he adjusted their course. It was like learning to fly Red after so long in Blue.

“Fine,” he ground out as they came out on the other side. “Give me the primer. Fast, please, I have friends in a damn airlock.”

“The pod isn’t as protected against quintessence leakage as the Lions were,” Acxa told him. “It was made of what was left from the trans-reality comet Lotor used to make Sincline, but there wasn’t a lot of ore left so it’s mixed with other metals. It won’t be able to stay in there as long as Voltron without reaching dangerous levels. Be glad you only have a varga, that’s about how long you have before we’re both dead in there anyway.”

“Sounds festive,” Lance answered, looking around at the expanse of empty space around them. It gave him chills to be here, so far away from everything. Maybe he didn’t personally remember every constellation from that day, but it wasn’t hard to believe this was the place where they’d sacrificed the Castle of Lions. “What were your pilots doing in there for so long?”

“They were devoted to the cause,” Acxa answered. “But just like we needed the star positions to find the exact spot to reconstruct the rift gate, the rift itself is just like space. It goes on forever, and without having a memory of how you maneuvered to leave it for us to deconstruct, we have no way to trace back a path to where we might find Lotor. They went in and just started looking, and they weren’t willing to give up.”

“I’ve already given up on your Psycho Prince Barbie, I’m only here for my friends,” Lance said bitterly as they approached the rift gate. “How does this thing open?”

Acxa pressed some buttons on the console. A timer lit up in red, counting down the doboshes and ticks they had left. She pressed something else and the gate over the rift started to open, spilling an eerie golden light out into the space around it.

Lance did not want to go in there. Every molecule of his being told him not to, nothing good came out of the rift. But he couldn’t let Adam and James get killed over Lotor, of all people.

A feeling of cold washed over his skin as the pod sank into the light, and he heard the gate closing behind them. His body tingled and the brightness stung his eyes, it took him a moment to adjust. Letting go of the controls, he sat back in his seat and gazed out through the screen.

“What are you doing?” Acxa asked impatiently.

“Contemplating my stock portfolio,” Lance snapped back. “Shut up before I launch _you_ out of an airlock. I’m trying to think.”

He closed his eyes and thought back, going back to the memory Natille had helped pull out of his subconscious. He thought about the fight with Lotor, about the euphoric feeling he’d had followed by Allura’s insistence they had to leave. They were deep within the quintessence field when that had happened, he remembered the almost floating sensation he’d had as they left. They had been going upward, like they were surfacing from deep in the ocean.

Without opening his eyes, Lance put his hands on the controls and began steering them in the direction that felt downward. He could feel the movement of the pod, he knew it moved much slower than the Lions. He thought he felt the slightest buildup of pressure, so much like diving down into the sea, as he kept them on course.

“You’re going too far from the gate,” Acxa warned.

“No, I’m not.”

He kept them going, and even with his eyes closed he thought he sensed a change in the light. Everything was still bright, but there was something different about the rift the further into it they went. It felt almost like it got more ominous, like it got more alive. But this was the direction they’d gone from when they’d left, and this was the direction the Sincline had continued to sink in.

“Lance,” Acxa warned again.

“Leave me alone, please,” he snapped. She made an annoyed growling sound, and he ignored her. She’d chosen to come on this joy ride, she would put up with whatever he chose to do.

He concentrated on that feeling of sinking into the depths, on the feeling of the pod shifting as if the quintessence around them moved in currents. Maybe he was going crazy, but if he listened in the silence he could almost hear things out there.

Well, not hear. Sense was more like it, the way he sensed his Lion or his bayard. Lance wondered if this was what Keith had felt when he’d followed his senses to the Blue Lion.

“ _Lance.”_

Lance opened his eyes and reached over, grabbing Acxa by the front of her uniform. He yanked her closer viciously, opening his eyes and leaning in to make sure she heard him very clearly.

“If you say my name one more time, I’m going to punch through your helmet shield and use a polymer shard to stab you in the neck,” he snarled. “And then I’m going to leave you down here so you can keep your boyfriend’s corpse company.”

He almost slammed her forward into the console for good measure. Almost…but he didn’t. He caught himself, breathing deeply and forcing trembling fingers to let go of her suit. This wasn’t him, it was this place. Or, more disturbingly, it _was_ him. It was the frustration and anger and upset that he always hid, brought to the forefront and magnified by the rift.

“Please just let me concentrate,” he said after a moment, much more calmly. “The quintessence field messes with your head. It brings out behavior people normally keep under wraps, it’s hard enough staying calm without you pushing my buttons.”

“So is that the kind of person you are under the stupid jokes?” Acxa asked. “A violent psychopath?”

Lance ignored the urge to show her exactly how violent he could be. Instead he tilted his head to look at her, giving her a sarcastic smile.

“Just your type, huh?” He asked.

“You’re taking us too far from the gate,” she said instead of answering. “We’ve been going for twenty doboshes.”

That didn’t sound right, it had barely felt like a few moments. Lance looked over at the timer, but she was correct, half of their time was now up. He looked around helplessly, at the field of empty light, wondering if they should go back.

“No,” he said after a moment, shaking his head. “We’re not deep enough.”

“You’re going to get us killed.”

“Well then, I hope you didn’t have any plans for tonight.”

He continued on, eyes darting between scanning the field ahead of them and the red timer ticking down on the console. James and Adam did not have much time, and at this rate even if they found the Sincline he wouldn’t be able to get it out of here that quickly without a miracle.

When Lance did spot something ahead, at first he didn’t want to hope. But as they got closer it began to take shape, floating dark and dead in the sea of light. Sincline was massive compared to this pod, if the quintessence field provided any drag or resistance at all they weren’t going to be able to tow it.

“Get us in a little bit closer,” Acxa requested, already hitting things on the console. Lance did so, and she fired a tow hook out around one of Sincline’s arms. The line wrapped around twice before it stopped, and Lance waited for her to pull in the slack before he fired the pod’s thrusters in reverse.

They started to move back the way they’d come, but barely.

“This thing’s too big for us to get out of here,” Lance groaned, kicking the underside of the console. “It’s going to take us a day just to get back dragging this thing.”

“Not quite a day, but maybe an extra varga,” Acxa answered, looking around at the seams of the pod’s canopy. “We’re going to have to tow it as long as we can, then exit. Come back after we’ve had a day to decontaminate.”

Lance looked over at the timer. It was now ticking down at ten doboshes. He looked out at the quintessence field, stretching on forever, and at how slowly he could tell they were moving. At this rate, Adam and James weren’t going to make it.

“This isn’t working for me,” Lance declared, checking again that his helmet was sealed. He hit the control to open the canopy, starting to remove his harness.

“What are you doing!?” Acxa practically screeched. “You can’t go out there!”

“I'm the pilot, I do what I want,” Lance answered, suppressing a shudder at the sudden harsh cold of quintessence flooding the cockpit. Once he was out he leaned on the canopy to force it to close faster, so Acxa could readjust the pressure to empty the pod.

His helmet stayed sealed, thankfully, but the pressure out here was uncomfortable without any kind of specialized suit. Lance knew he didn’t have a lot of time and he didn’t waste any, kicking away from the pod and pulling himself along the tow rope to reach the Sincline. His limbs were already starting to tremble by the time he reached the mech, his fingers clumsy as he ran them along the seams where he knew the cockpit entrance should be.

Something stung the back of his neck and he cursed, slapping at it. His hand came away covered with an inky blackness that seemed out of place in all of the light. Looking around, he realized there were things starting to swarm around the ships, small clouds of black that moved uncomfortably fast. Some of them danced over the Sincline’s hull, some of them floated around the pod.

“Not what I need right now,” he grunted, finding what he thought was the cockpit door.

The black things started to move, convening into one large cloud like a school of fish. It mostly ignored the pod now, moving around the Sincline.

 _Me_ , Lance realized with a chill. _I’m out here unprotected, they’re interested in me_.

His gloveless hands felt weak and cold, the metal biting into them as he tried to force the mech’s entrance open. Out of the corner of his eye, Lance could see the group of creatures beginning to circle closer and he started to panic. He pulled with everything he had, startling himself when the door suddenly flew open and almost threw him completely off into the rift.

He hung on, pulling himself in, and dragged the door closed just as the cloud of black slammed into it. He felt the impact as Sincline rocked, throwing him off balance.

The cockpit of this ship was made for two people, with only a little extra room in the back. It was flooded with quintessence from his entrance, making him even more dizzy and weak from exposure. It was getting difficult to breathe as he moved to the front seat, looking down at the pilot harnessed in there.

Lotor did not look any different from the last time Lance had seen him. He sat in the seat as if he were merely asleep, his hair floating up around him in the swirling currents. Lance leaned over him to power up the Sincline, adjusting the pressure here to drain this cockpit as well. He activated the life support systems and then hauled Lotor out of the pilot seat, not even bothering to put him into the back one. Lance just dropped him on the floor where he belonged, stepping over him to harness himself in.

He felt frozen down to his bones as the viewscreens activated and Sincline powered up completely, already fully charged thanks to basically being in an ocean of accessible power. Lance turned on his communications, hailing the pod, and a moment later Acxa’s face came up on his screen. She looked a little pale.

“How much longer do we have?” Lance asked tiredly.

“Five doboshes.”

“Tow line still secure?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“Good. Open the gate.”

That was all the warning Lance gave her. He threw the mech’s accelerator up to full speed, smirking slightly when he heard her screaming over the comm. Sincline moved like a dream, cutting through the rift with ease and dragging the pod roughly behind her like a broken down kite. She closed the distance to the rift gate in under a minute, and Lance was almost blinded when they shot out of the brightness of the quintessence field and into the darkness of space.

Without the pull of quintessence, out in open space, Sincline moved even more nicely. Which was very fortunate, because Lance could feel his eyelids drifting closed and his grip on the controls starting to weaken. It was a fight to stay awake through the wormhole, and to approach the outpost with any sort of control. In fact, his landing was wild and uncontrolled as he was directed to a larger hangar entrance around the other side of the hub. The mech flew in sideways, hit the ground rolling, and only stopped when it hit the inner airlock door.

The outer door was just closing and the inner door beginning to rise when he climbed out of the prone machine, falling several yards to the hangar floor in his delirium. Lance couldn’t breathe, his chest felt painfully tight. He had to fight desperately to get his helmet off and even once it was removed he couldn’t get any air. His whole body was cold, his eyes didn’t want to focus.

He made it only a few steps before he went down, a blurry vision of bodies running toward him the last thing he saw before everything went black.


	19. Chapter 19

It had been a week, but things were finally starting to happen. Keith wasn’t sure how they would ultimately culminate in finding Lance and Griffin, but his team was now active and driven with purpose again. They were out of the rut of daily mindless simulations and had their heads back in the game, which was when the magic always happened.

He didn’t have much to do personally at the moment except supervise. Hunk and Pidge were doing the heavy mental lifting, and they’d all given Allura a break to properly mourn her mother. She still came into the base and still tried to help, but they all understood if she got overwhelmed and needed to go hide out in her Lion for a while.

Shiro was on defense with the Atlas, preparing the crew for the eventuality of leaving Earth to join the war elsewhere. Right now that was where the Lions were docked as the ship floated stationary near Mars’ orbit, a low-stress exercise to get the crew used to not being planetside. Keith was in the ship’s meeting room with the others, sitting at one end of a horseshoe-shaped table with Shiro and Kolivan while Hunk and Pidge sat on the other on a conference call with Ryner.

Shiro and Kolivan sat across from each other while Keith stood, leaning over the edge of the table to gesture to the holographic star map they surrounded.

“This is the quadrant of space the Coalition SOS signal came from,” Keith said, gesturing to one side of the map before pointing to the other. “And this is where we traced the wormhole that opened near Earth to. We didn’t pick up any signs of secondary wormholes, only balmera engines. So the one over Earth must have been residual.”

“What’s the difference between a residual wormhole and a regular wormhole?” Kolivan asked. Slav had once gone into specifics about teludav use, but like all the others he had consciously tuned him out.

“Residual wormholes can be activated by anyone if there’s enough Altean energy built up in the system,” Shiro explained. “Coran was able to wormhole us into Zarkon’s central command to save Allura because she’d built up enough of her energy in the ship for one use.”

“If whoever was piloting the ship Acxa met up with was capable of creating wormholes on their own, they probably would have,” Keith surmised. “But they didn’t, it looks like they went on under engine power. The SOS was picked up somewhere around twelve to thirteen hours later. If we assume standard speed for a balmera powered ship, and that the ship didn’t stop between the time it wormholed and the time the signal went out, then this is the section of the quadrant it could have come from.”

He displayed Pidge’s calculations, lighting up what looked like a cross-section of a sphere. It effectively cut the quadrant of space they had to search into a third, but that still left a lot of ground to cover.

“And this is where my people estimate Haggar to be working from,” Kolivan reached up to highlight a smaller area in the cross section. “It’s one of five contested areas won by Sendak’s Fire of Purification when the fighting broke out. Fire was built by Haggar, he stayed in power because she kept him there. It was the biggest faction out of all the warring factions…it still is.

“It’s being run by a fairly average soldier named Throk now. He was under Sendak’s command, which was what he based his claim on, and Haggar’s backing got him the top spot. The Fire is one of the last big threats to any other faction that wants power, they have control of what’s left of the Galra central command. There is no one on the Emperor’s throne right now, Lotor’s considered to be in hiding in the face of civil war and the Fire fans those rumors for its own gain.”

“As long as the majority of Galra think Lotor’s still out there, he’s still technically emperor,” Shiro frowned. “And they won’t hold a Kral Zera, which means Throk doesn’t have to disband his faction for a new ruler.”

“It also holds off the possibility of the empire uniting under someone Haggar doesn’t control,” Keith agreed. “All of her research into quintessence comes from the unlimited funding of having a leader in her pocket. If somebody who doesn’t trust her takes the throne, she’ll lose everything she’s worked for.”

“We have verification that Fire is the faction Haggar is still working with?” Shiro asked. “Do we have a location for their base of operations in this quadrant?”

“We do have verification, we don’t have a location,” Kolivan answered. “The factions stay separate, the news we do have comes from travelers my people have managed to find and speak to. All we know is that this section of space belongs to the Fire. Outposts and bases aren’t exactly put on maps.”

“The fact that they’re so fractured might be good news for our search,” Keith mused. “By necessity, the factions will have to deal with people who aren’t Galra. There are going to be supply and merchant ships going to and from any base planets, and if factions aren’t cooperating there won’t be any standard databases of authorized visitors.”

“It’s the Wild West in space,” Shiro agreed. “And the Coalition has members of all species. A ship disguised as a traveling merchant vessel will probably be allowed into public areas of a base without problems.”

“Which also means a ship disguised as a traveling merchant vessel won’t be suspect if it’s searching the area in a way that just makes it look like it’s passing through,” Keith added.

“So that means the Lions and the Atlas are out,” Kolivan said. “So are any of the Blade’s stolen strikers. We don’t want to send anything that looks even remotely ready for war…which means pretty much all of our ships are out.”

“Not all,” Keith disagreed. “The Coalition has some pretty sneaky freelancers on our speed dial.”

“Rolo and Nyma?” Shiro grinned.

“Rolo and Nyma,” Keith nodded with a faint smirk. “They’ve done business with the Galra before, they know how to interact. And since they bring Beezer to Pidge for upgrades we can keep in touch through him instead of open channels.”

“I’ll have Matt reach out to them,” Shiro promised. “I don’t doubt they’ll agree.”

“In the meantime, I want to take the Lions and check out the perimeter of the search area,” Keith informed them. He was itching to get out there and do something, to finally have a fight to take out his frustrations on, but he pushed the urgency down and tried to stay reasonable. He was careful not to phrase it as a demand, wanting to avoid a repeat of the fight in Shiro’s office.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Shiro asked, looking up from the map at him. “Four Lions against a faction fleet if something goes wrong, maybe more. And there’s no telling whether Haggar has any more of those mechs in the area. You can’t form Voltron with only four.”

“We won’t be going far enough in for that to happen,” Keith answered. “I want to scout planets in the area, places we can safely leave the Lions if necessary. Now that we can call them from a distance, we have the option of sneaking in without being seen and bringing them in for an explosive exit later.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” It was Kolivan who spoke this time. “If the four of you pick up any sign of a base, you _will_ go in to look for your pilots whether you’re prepared with intel or not. Everyone here knows this.”

He looked to Shiro, who met his gaze. Keith felt his frustration beginning to rise again, but he fought it. Freaking out didn’t do anything, and the last thing he wanted was to lose control the way he had last time. Especially if there was even the smallest thread of truth to the Coran’s insistence that they all carried pieces of the original Paladins with them.

Zarkon had been swayed toward indulging his anger by his extended exposure to quintessence. How to avoid that was a lesson Keith intended to learn this time around.

“At some point, we’re going to go in there,” Keith told them, keeping his voice level. “This is where Lance and Griffin were taken, this is where Haggar is. This is where a fight is going to be, whether we want it to be or not. I’m willing to trust Nyma and Rolo to try and get me some information, but my team’s lives will be on the line and I need more than what they’ll get me.”

Kolivan, as always, was unreadable. Shiro looked at the star map again, frowning, and shook his head slowly.

“I don’t like it,” he answered. “We don’t know enough about this area to know what you’ll run into, and with our luck you’ll be seen and attacked. But this also isn’t our call to make. Kolivan and I have given you our opinions, but you’re the leader of Voltron. Where they go is up to you.”

Keith was caught by surprise. He had expected more of an argument, not to have Shiro back off completely. He looked over to Kolivan, who said nothing more. His silence was agreement.

Suddenly, his decision seemed a lot heavier. Keith had led his team on his own before, in Shiro’s absence when he had been the only leader available. But that had only been for a short time, and ever since then he’d deferred to his mother, or Shiro, or Kolivan. The final decision had always fallen on the shoulders of someone more experienced, he had simply gone with it if he agreed or gone with it and complained if he didn’t.

This new dynamic made Keith reconsider his plan. He hadn’t been told not to, but he had been told by two much more experienced people that it was a bad idea. Pride said to go ahead anyway, but he knew listening to them would be what a wise leader would do.

“I’m going to go,” he said after a moment, glancing over at the others. “I’ll only take Hunk, we’ll go together in Black.”

Keith thought it was a decent compromise. If he only took one Lion, he definitely wouldn’t be tempted to get into a fight. Hunk was level-headed, he would keep him from doing anything stupid, and having his teammate with him instead of in Yellow would make him much more careful. And if anything did happen, Black could get them out of there fast if he really had to.

Keith looked to Shiro, and after a moment he got a nod. “I think I can more comfortably agree to that.”

“A smart change of plan,” Kolivan agreed. Coming from him it was practically glowing praise, it made Keith feel like he was finally starting to do things right.

“Hey, Ryner gave us the results!” Pidge called from across the room, coming over to join them as their call ended. She was practically vibrating with excitement from being able to have a real, stimulating intellectual conversation of the sort she couldn’t usually have with the other Paladins alone. “Ready to see?”

“Sure.” Shiro gave her a smile and turned off the star map, slipping seamlessly out of the role of Commander and into Big Brother mode.

Keith wished he could relax that easily, drop one facet and move effortlessly into another. Too long spent without people around made it hard, he had to consciously stop what he was doing and switch gears if the situation changed. He was very comfortable around the others, they were practically family to him, but the ability to act like a properly socialized human being was still sometimes elusive.

Pidge connected the hologram to her computer and started bringing up the things Ryner had sent her. Keith watched with interest as a picture of Pidge and one of Hunk came up, each with a crisp image of a 3D double helix next to it.

“Pidge is thirteen percent Olkari!” Hunk blurted out excitedly before she could say anything. “They’re distant cousins to the Dalterions! Sam is a full quarter! How cool is that? No wonder she could do that crazy stuff with the trees on Olkarion!”

“And Hunk is around ten percent Rygnirathan!” Pidge exclaimed. “Aliens have been coming to Earth and we never even knew!”

Keith watched the delicate helices spin, labels appearing on some parts briefly before disappearing as they went out of view. He knew he was looking at DNA but that was about it. Everything he saw looked fairly the same as the diagrams he’d come across in textbooks, he could only assume the spots that were brightly colored on the hologram were bases not normally found on Earth.

“Do you know what this proves?” Pidge asked. “Human phenotypes are dominant for some reason! This could be a whole new avenue of genetic science that needs exploration!”

“That means…human-alien hybrids always look human?” Keith guessed at what she meant and was rewarded with a huge grin.

“Exactly!”

He could see why that would be interesting to somebody like Pidge. It wasn’t terribly interesting to him, personally, but it obviously meant something to her. He could practically see her planning out her doctoral thesis right now.

“That’s cool,” Keith tried to sound supportive. She didn’t stop grinning, so he figured he did a decent job.

“There’s something else we found in the results Ryner sent over,” Pidge said, pulling up two more helices and pointing to them. “This is Olkari DNA, and this is Rygnirathan. They’re both double helix, just like human. Now look at this.”

She banished the images and brought up two more. These two each had four helices.

“This one is the sample Allura gave us, and the other one is what Kolivan gave,” Pidge told them. “Here’s Keith.”

She brought up a third. This one was a double helix that had parts of a third and fourth running through it. There was no part of it that had four, it seemed to be evenly split into sections so that each had three.

“Okay, are we on the same page?” Hunk asked, still looking excited. “Most species have two helices. Galra and Alteans have four. Keith, who’s a mix of a two and a four, sort of has three. All good?”

“I don’t know what it means, but I understand those basics, yes,” Shiro nodded.

“Good. Pidge?” Hunk prompted.

“Drumroll?” Pidge requested. Hunk beat the table lightly while she cleared those images away and brought up three more. On one end was a regular double helix, on the other side was a triple helix similar to Keith’s, and in the middle was a strange, in-between mix of both. “Ta da!”

“Who are they?” Keith asked.

“Lance,” Pidge and Hunk said at the same time.

“Which one?” Shiro frowned. He pointed to the normal looking one. “This one, right?”

“All of them,” Hunk corrected. “We got Veronica to give us his brush, he hadn’t had a haircut in a while so these all come from different parts on the same hair strand. Okay, one last piece of the picture, hang on.”

Pidge pulled up some more files. There were eight brain scans, four of which she arranged in a row. Beneath them, she put two others on the far left and two on the far right.

“I pulled these from the hospital’s database,” Pidge said proudly. “They were taken while we were in the hospital after the Last Stand. These two on the right are Keith and Allura, these two on the left are Hunk and me.”

“Pidge, that’s illegal,” Shiro warned, frowning. “You can’t just go hacking medical records, that’s privileged information. There are government regulations covering health records. I know you feel like these are mitigating circumstances but please run it by a higher officer before you do anything like that next time.”

Pidge looked slightly guilty. Keith knew that Shiro had said ‘higher officer’ because he was likely aware he had asked her to do it, and he felt slightly guilty as well that she might get in trouble. But Shiro was also right that these were mitigating circumstances, she had only taken information on Paladins and he highly doubted any of them were going to complain.

“Sorry,” Pidge said, sounding like she actually meant it. “But this is important. Look, look at these scans. Hunk and I are the same. Keith and Allura have an extra area that’s really active here, we don’t. Now look at these four scans up top. These are all Lance, they’re some of the scans taken over the last six months. As time goes by, this section is starting to light up in his brain.”

“His DNA is changing, and his brain is changing,” Keith came to the conclusion Pidge was leading them to. “Why? Nobody else’s is.”

“The extra helix!” Hunk leaned forward to point to the hologram that still floated along the side. “Galra and Alteans have something extra in them that gives them a sensitivity to quintessence! We’re not changing because other species don’t have that.”

“That’s why Keith was able to sense the Blue Lion and plug into the quintessence field through Black so easily, and why Allura can use alchemy,” Pidge explained. “The initial shot of quintessence Lance got in Red, and then all that he was exposed to during the rest of the fight, made enough of a change for him to start tapping into it like Allura and Keith. But the human brain isn’t made for that, so every time he unconsciously used more than he was used to, he’d have a seizure while his brain rewired a little bit more.”

“It wasn’t degenerative,” Shiro realized, looking at the holograms. “Lance’s doctors just don’t know what Altean brain activity looks like.”

“It probably hurts a lot to have your brain rewire itself while you’re conscious, but Hunk and Keith were right,” Pidge said. “He was going longer and longer between fits as he built up tolerance, he’d probably be fine in a few more months.”

“If he was getting better, there was nothing to interfere between him and Red,” Keith leaned forward against the table, absently poking at the hologram of Lance’s DNA and making it spin. “He’s still her pilot, and she won’t take a new Paladin because he’s definitely still alive.”

Keith felt triumphant that his faith had been validated. He knew it wasn’t really any fault of the others that they were losing hope, the Earth military was staffed by jaded, pessimistic people and being surrounded by that had a way of wearing a person down. He needed to get them away from that, back into their team dynamic. Maybe it was time to remove the Lions from the Garrison entirely, and interact more with Coalition forces than Earth ones.

“Math time,” Keith minimized the images in front of them and brought the star map back up. The door opened as he did so and he glanced over to see Allura coming quietly into the room. “Pidge, Hunk, take notes. Allura, pull up a chair. How are you feeling?”

He paused in what he was doing to wait for an answer. Keith wasn’t always the best at emoting even when he did understand people’s feelings, but he had been in a similar place to Allura’s once. He knew to an extent what she was going through and how hard it really was. The whole experience had been a sort of epiphany. It was the first time Keith could remember that he was completely certain of how someone felt, of what they might need and how he should respond. It was an odd feeling after standing on the fringes for so long.

“I’m okay, thank you,” she smiled as she came over to join them, looking tired but otherwise all right. “Pidge sent me the results Ryner gave her, I thought this meeting might be too good to miss.”

“You’re right on time for the brainstorming session,” Hunk told her, grinning. “It’s the first one where we’re all officially aliens. Except Shiro.”

“We’re in Mars’ orbit, technically I’m alien here,” Shiro pointed out. “I count.”

Keith expanded the hologram of the star map, bringing up Pidge’s highlighted SOS calculation and Kolivan’s outlined Fire of Purification territory.

“Let’s start with what we know. First, we’ve figured out Lance is alive, and for the sake of argument let’s say Griffin is too,” he reasoned. “But it’s been a week and we haven’t heard anything. If they were going to be used to lure us into a trap, it would have happened right away before we had time to prepare.”

“So, considering Griffin as collateral damage and Lance the main target, a Paladin was taken because someone specifically needed a Paladin,” Pidge chimed in. “He’s alive, so they either still need him or they used him and think he might still be useful.”

“Second thing we know, Acxa was the one that took them,” Hunk chimed in.

“The third thing we know is that she used a wormhole to get out of Coalition space, so she’s working with Alteans,” Allura added.

“Specifically, Haggar,” Keith agreed. “The area Pidge calculated that SOS to correlates with where Kolivan believes a Fire of Purification outpost is, and that’s the faction Haggar uses as a front. I think it’s safe to say the Galra themselves aren’t involved with Lance or the Alteans. The Galra have been working to eradicate the Alteans for thousands of years. But they think Haggar’s a Galran witch, and they’re benefiting from whatever she’s doing.”

“We should also consider that Acxa isn’t working specifically for Haggar,” Shiro warned. “Let’s remember she changed sides repeatedly and we never knew where she stood.”

“So you have many different players on the board,” Kolivan finally spoke. “Now you need to know what ties them together. What is the one thing, person, or place a Paladin of Voltron, Haggar, the Galra, Acxa, and Alteans all have in common?”

There was a brief pause before everyone looked up at each other, all speaking in unison.

“Lotor.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Shiro sat on the floor of his dark office at the Garrison, his door closed and the room quiet. His black and white uniform jacket was tossed on the desk, leaving him in his slacks and a gray t-shirt. He stared at nothing, his eyes watching the shadows dancing across the far wall from the late afternoon sunlight outside his window but his mind not really processing.

The Atlas had landed in her berth an hour ago. Hunk and Pidge had been excused to tell their families their newfound genealogies, while Keith and Kolivan waited elsewhere with Krolia. It had been decided that now was the time to wake the Altean mech pilot and find out how much she knew.

Romelle said the girl’s name was Ariella, she knew her from the colony. Information from the Lions led them all to believe she had been actively piloting the mech during the fight and so was considered hostile. But she was still a victim, so it had been decided that only Romelle, Allura, and Coran would be in the room when she woke. They hoped being surrounded by her own kind upon waking would bring down her guard some.

Shiro had excused himself and come here. His feedback wasn’t needed for this, his opinion wasn’t necessary. And thankfully so, because he was steadily losing faith in his decisions as time went by.

He was tired. Tired of being the mentor, tired of being the support. He loved all of the people in his life, dearly so, but always being the one holding other people up and not really being held up in return was exhausting.

It was one of the traits he’d seen in Lance early on that had made the kid remind him of himself when he was younger. Always reassuring everyone else, keeping his own problems quiet so nobody else was burdened. When he was younger it hadn’t really mattered, Shiro had always told himself that somebody had to do it and that he was strong enough to.

He had been raised by a single mother, and he had learned that strength from her. Even after her Huntington's Disease diagnosis she had gone through life with her head held high for as long as she could, holding out until her son was eighteen before she gave in and passed away so he would never be forced into foster care. She had been at his graduation from the Garrison, sat quietly in her wheelchair during the ceremony, and made sure he knew she was proud of him.

When she succumbed to pneumonia two months later, Shiro had remained strong. Two years after, when he got the news that he carried the genetic markers for her disease, he had remained silent and carried the weight himself. When he had begun to show symptoms, when he’d known he only had a few years left of free movement—possibly of life—he had faced it head on.

Except that was all different. That wasn’t the same as what he’d been through afterward, what he had suffered from the time the Galra had taken him. Because he hadn’t really been _alone_ through his early life problems.

Shiro turned the cloudy glasses over in his hands, letting them catch the light and reflect it onto the walls. When his mother had died, he hadn’t been alone at the funeral. Someone had been there with him, their cutting insults back and forth temporarily suspended. Adam had stood quietly at the dreary cemetery, holding an umbrella over Shiro’s head while he dealt with crying family. He had stayed at the funeral parlor until late without complaint, helping to gather flowers and dropped programs and mass cards.

By the time his diagnosis had come, Shiro had someone at home. He had spent the better part of that night lying across the sofa with his head in Adam’s lap, gentle fingers running soothingly through his hair. When the first symptoms had begun to show, requiring him to begin taking medication, Adam had been double checking his prescriptions and reminding him about refills.

Shiro had support through all of that, even if he did pride himself on being strong. But it was the things that came after, the captivity and the arena and the torture, being responsible for the lives of four teenagers, having the safety of the universe on his shoulders…those were the things he had been forced to keep to himself, the things that ate away at him even now.

And he knew that it was his own fault.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Years ago_** :

Shiro stormed into the Garrison faculty lounge, past two teachers sitting by the window and through the otherwise empty common area. He dropped down to sit on the sofa, kicking the low table that sat in front of it.

Adam was where he always was this time of day, at the counter having a cup of tea before he had to try and teach flight classes to hyperactive teenagers. He glanced back over his shoulder at Shiro, lightly blowing the steam from his cup.

“Everything okay?”

He sounded concerned, as always. Normally Shiro would find it sweet, but at the moment he was just annoyed. Not necessarily at Adam, just at everything in general.

“Iverson thinks I shouldn’t be part of the mission,” he complained. “Called in the big guns. Admiral Sanda showed up and tried to convince Sam to remove me from the crew.”

Shiro felt betrayed. He had never been anything but obedient when it came to Iverson, he’d always done his duty to the fullest and given everything he had to the Garrison. Now, when one of the most important missions of human history was approaching, the man was trying to ground him. This was the sort of mission Shiro had strived for, the kind that put names in history books.

“Well, maybe he’s right.” Adam lifted his cup and turned his stool to face him a little better, and Shiro felt his annoyance begin to blossom into anger. “Maybe you shouldn’t go on the mission. You’ll only be putting yourself at risk.”

This again. As if one human life was really anything when stacked against the contributions this was going to make toward science. Why was it that nobody seemed to understand? Shiro wanted to be a part of this, he _needed_ to be a part of this. He knew his life wasn’t going to be worth much for very long, he needed to make it matter while he still could.

“You know how important this is to me,” Shiro answered in a clipped tone. “It’s worth the risk.”

Adam slammed his cup down. In the quiet of the nearly empty lounge the sound was loud, but it was the only indication he gave that he was upset. Adam was a screamer when he was really angry, usually in his native Portuguese with a whole lot of expletives, but that wasn’t the kind of upset he was right now.

“Takashi, how important am _I_ to you?” He asked. He was calm, looking down at the cup instead of at him, and it gave Shiro the impression that he had been wanting to ask this question for a while. “Every mission, every drill, I’ve been right there with you. But this is more than just a mission…this is your life at stake.”

Shiro groaned and let his head fall back against the sofa. He wasn’t in the mood to thoroughly ponder his mortality, he just wanted to complain and get a little bit of sympathy. Why did it have to turn into a fight every time Kerberos came up?

“Don’t start that again, Adam. You don’t need to protect me!” Shiro wasn’t dying this instant. He wasn’t a fragile, breakable little doll. He wasn’t wheelchair bound like his mother had been in her final days, he still had some time. “This is something I need to do for myself.”

“There’s nothing left for you to prove!” Adam sounded frustrated now, almost as much so as Shiro already was. “You’ve broken every record there is to break!”

He didn’t get it. None of them got it. Shiro had to do this because there would be a day, very soon, when he would no longer be able to do anything he loved. He was going to get sicker, he was going to fade, and he was eventually going to pass away into obscurity.

He refused to do that here. If the Kerberos mission sped up his deterioration and he died quicker, then so be it. Less time for the people he loved to suffer having to watch it.

“I know I can’t stop you, but I won’t go through this again.” Something in Adam’s voice this time was different from their previous arguments. Shiro looked over at him, but Adam wouldn’t meet his eyes. That wasn’t like him, he wasn’t the kind of man who avoided confrontation. Especially in an argument with Shiro, who he was never afraid to call an idiot.

“So if you decide to go, don’t expect me to be here when you get back.” There was a note of finality in Adam’s voice, but it was quiet. Shiro thought he heard an unsteadiness there, like saying the words had upset him more than he wanted to let on. He quickly grabbed his bag and made a beeline for the door, making his escape. “I’ve got a class to teach.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current day_** :

Shiro had a month to change his mind, and he hadn’t. In hindsight, he knew he had been a cruel partner just as often as he’d been a kind one. He had been ambitious, the things he’d felt the need to do for himself had taken precedence over other people. He had always simply assumed they would still be there waiting when he was done, because why wouldn’t they?

And Adam always had been. When Shiro had been part of the crew that had taken the new high speed shuttle on its maiden trip to Mars, Adam had been there to take care of him for the month it had taken him to recover. When he’d been chosen as one of two pilots for a mission to retrieve a broken drone and its samples from the asteroid belt, Adam had been there to support him upon his return.

The missions got farther out, and their schedules stretched out longer. Adam grew more and more uncomfortable, but he continued to be there. And Shiro had repaid him by barely thinking about his feelings at all.

Not to mention Keith. Shiro knew Keith gave him more credit than he should. The kid had gone through hell to save him, and Shiro knew he didn’t deserve it.

He had gone to Kerberos knowing it would be the end of him. There was no way he’d be able to manage his disease without his regular doctor appointments to adjust his medications, and the wristband he wore to stimulate his muscles would only work for so long. Shiro had estimated he would be fully healthy until about halfway through the return trip. He was sure he would get Sam and Matt safely back to Earth, but he’d also known he wouldn’t have much longer after that.

Shiro had chosen Kerberos, knowing that he was ultimately abandoning Adam and Keith. And it had been worth it to him, because they hadn’t been as important to him as they should have been.

He paused in flipping the glasses, holding them up in the light. They had been expensive, they had taken effort to get. His attempt to return the care given to him with something of monetary value, because deep down he’d known he was getting more than he gave.

War had a way of changing perspective. Back then, Shiro had walked away from Keith far too easily just for the chance to be the first pilot to set foot on Kerberos. Now? Now he would give up everything for Keith, or for Hunk, or for Pidge, or for Lance. For Allura, or Coran, or Matt, or Sam and Colleen.

He didn’t have a second chance to fix what he’d done to Adam. Because Adam had done what he always did, unquestioningly put himself between danger and people under his care.

Sitting here in the dark with glasses belonging to a dead man wasn’t healthy, Shiro knew that. He knew he should make an appointment to talk to someone. The Paladins had all seen therapists for about three months after the Last Stand, up to three and four times a week in the beginning in some cases. Shiro needed to do that, he needed to confide in someone about the things he’d been through and the things he’d done to survive.

Someone knocked softly on his door. He hauled himself off the floor and grabbed his jacket, calling for them to come in as he pocketed the glasses and turned away to button it up. The door opened to admit Allura, a frown on her pretty face. That was a look she wore more and more often these days.

“How did it go?” He asked. “How did…Ariella, was it? How did Ariella respond to you?”

“She’s confused and upset,” Allura answered, lowering herself into a chair as Shiro sat on the edge of his desk. “She believes Coran and I are part of the enemy, that we helped to kill Lotor and want to see the remaining Alteans destroyed as well. She thinks Romelle was taken by us and brainwashed. But it’s her wording that disturbs me more than anything.”

“How so?”

“She spoke as if there were only a handful of Alteans remaining,” Allura answered. “Romelle claims her colony had several thousand. That lines up ”

“So at some point between us detonating the Castle’s teludav and us coming out of the time dilation, the number of Alteans went from thousands to a handful,” Shiro frowned. “I can see how that might be disturbing. But it doesn’t make any sense, where did all the others go?”

“Ariella is convinced we destroyed the colony,” Allura said. “She refers to Haggar as Empress Honerva and talks about her like a savior.”

“We need to find out what happened on that colony,” Shiro decided. “Something did. Krolia and Keith picked up Romelle there when it was at its peak, but Kolivan’s search turned up nothing. Somebody took those Alteans, and there’s no way they were all harvested the way Romelle’s family was.”

“They couldn’t be, not all Alteans are that strongly tied to quintessence,” Allura agreed. “We’re going to have to investigate.”

“Keith is taking Hunk to check out the perimeter of the Fire of Purification’s territory. Maybe you should take Pidge and investigate the empty colony,” Shiro suggested. “You’ll know better than others what to look for when it comes to looking at Altean technology, or even just at Lotor’s. Krolia will probably be able to go with you to show you where she and Keith visited.”

“All of this ties even more strongly to Lotor,” Allura frowned, worrying the edge of her uniform shirt in her hands. “What if he’s alive?”

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” Shiro assured her. “You have nothing to feel guilty about, Allura. He was the one who went off the deep end, he was the one who started that fight. And he was the one who put you in a situation where you had to choose between trying to save him and your team’s survival.”

He pushed away from the desk, resting his hand on her shoulder.

“I know it still hurts. Losing someone you genuinely care about always does, no matter what the circumstances. If any of this really does involve Lotor at all then it’s not going to be easy for you, but we’re all right behind you.”

Allura gave him a little smile, only a ghost of the real ones she used to give but genuine nonetheless.

“Thank you, Shiro. But like you said, we’ll deal with that when we come to it. For now we need to check on that colony, and we need to convince Ariella we’re on her side to try and get more information.”

Shiro nodded, letting her go. “We’ll discuss all of that tomorrow, when everyone’s together. It’s getting late, the day’s almost over. Go home and get some sleep.”

He walked her to the door, watching until she was all the way down the hall in case she needed anything else. When she was gone he closed the door and turned the light back off, crossing the room and going back over to his desk.

He slid down to the floor and leaned back against it, taking the glasses out of his pocket and watching the light reflect off them onto the walls while he stared off into space.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/17/18 - A quick edit on this chapter to fix my timeline, because I'm an idiot and posted it before I fixed it. Adam's flashback scene takes place AFTER the Kerberos mission failure, not just a week after Shiro initially left. (Sorry, I'm scatterbrained!)

**_Current day_** :

Adam watched helplessly as Lance jumped into the small pod, taking next to no safety measures. He didn’t have a flight suit to protect against pressure changes, and what he did wear would do nothing to retain body heat if necessary. The helmet he grabbed had belonged to an obviously dead woman and he didn’t even check it to make sure it was functional, nor had he inspected the pod at all to ensure it was still safe for flight.

The only reassurance Adam had—and very slight reassurance at that—was when a Galran woman climbed in after him. She was properly dressed and clearly prepared, and didn’t look like she was the type to take unnecessary chances.

“Who is she?” Adam asked, pressing against the glass of the airlock to watch the pod taxi out of the station. “Do we know?”

“Who, Hot-But-Crazy who just went off with McClain?” James asked, stepping away from the glass once the pod was out of sight. “That’s Acxa. She’s the one who brought us here. But she also apparently wants to keep us alive and mostly healthy, so God only knows who’s side she’s actually on.”

“Duly noted,” Adam decided. He stepped back, slowly looking around the airlock they stood in. “Maybe she’ll be useful.”

Most people didn’t think so, but a wild card was something that was always good to have in the deck. People who had their own agendas could sometimes be bought off, or bartered with. The group of Alteans who called the tall woman their empress were clearly very loyal to her, but if James was correct and this Acxa woman wanted the boys relatively safe it sounded like she was hedging her bets. She must want something the Alteans had, but didn’t want to completely burn her bridges with Earth.

Adam had learned a thing or two about the different levels of loyalty among the Galra during his stay. He was not still alive simply because of his own personal fighting ability.

“So what do we do?” James started pacing, glaring into the station at the group who had congregated over by the far window to watch the pod go through the wormhole. Except Honerva, she was over at a lab table going about her business as if none of them were here. “We’re going to get shot out into space in a varga. I don’t even know what a varga is!”

“A little less than an hour,” Adam said absently.

“A little less than an hour,” James repeated, raking his hands through his hair. “My corpse gets sent to float endlessly in space in a little less than an hour.”

“Don’t worry, we’re in orbit,” Adam answered, running his hands along the seams of the airlock. “Your corpse will circle the planet until gravity pulls you close enough for a full reentry. Then you’ll be cremated. On the bright side, funerals are expensive but friction burn-up is free.”

James stopped pacing and whirled to face him.

“Can you please be serious for thirty seconds?” He demanded. “I know you’ve spent the last year and a half playing Daily Deathmatch and survival’s become something of a joke to you, but we’re in an airlock. McClain just let himself be convinced to go into the quintessence field, where an experienced pilot was just pulled from dead. All three of us are about to meet our maker in less than an hour, you could at least try to be a little less indifferent about it.”

“I’m not indifferent, I’m calm,” Adam replied. “When was the last time you were locked in a car trunk?”

“What?”

“A car trunk,” Adam repeated. “When was the last time you were locked in a car trunk?”

James groaned and leaned against the airlock, letting his head fall back to thunk against the surface. He acted as if Adam was the one who was behaving poorly here, which was ironic since James was clearly the less experienced and obviously more easily flustered of the two of them.

“I’m calm because I know you can’t get locked in a car trunk,” Adam explained. “They make them with emergency latches. So please tell me, in what universe would humans put emergency latches in car trunks, but more advanced species wouldn’t do the same thing in airlocks?”

He reached down and pressed the panel his fingers had found, clicking the mechanism that made it spring open. Inside was a bright red lever with instructions next to it, both in Galran and in pictures, showing how to open the inner airlock door from here in an emergency.

James stared at the lever, the looked up at Adam with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Adam pressed the panel closed and folded his hands behind his back, stepping over to the inner door to look around the  inside of the lab. His gaze swept the whole area as James came to stand beside him.

“Don’t lose your head just because the situation is tough,” Adam advised. “You’re scared, I get it, so am I. This isn’t the kind of battlefield you’v ever been in, it’s daunting, but right now you need to think like a soldier. Your instincts can be your best friend or your worst enemy at the moment…you need to ignore flight and focus on fight.”

He heard James take a deep breath and try to relax. The kid was a fighter pilot, and right now he needed to forget being a pilot and remember how to be a fighter. Adam knew he could do it, James was a smart guy and well trained, but right now he really needed him to prove it.

“There,” James murmured after a moment, nodding upward far to the right of them. “That catwalk up there, it has stairs going up to the next level.”

Adam tilted his head to look. James was right, there was a catwalk that went around the top of the lab, with a staircase on each side that disappeared up to the next level. Most likely to make it easier to go up so those working here wouldn’t have to go out, up, and back in. He couldn’t easily see any way to actually get up to the catwalk itself.

“There has to be a ladder or more stairs,” Adam reasoned. “They’re probably just out of sight, on one side of the airlocks. We need to get out of here and up there.”

“It needs to be soon, in case McClain gets back,” James frowned. “They play him like a fiddle if there’s anyone around to use against him. If we’d left when he told us to he wouldn’t be out in that pod right now.”

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Adam sighed. But he knew James was right, because he knew Lance. He was painfully like Takashi sometimes with how little value he put on his own safety. “Be ready. They have to cross the whole lab to get to us, we want to go when they’re already distracted with Lance coming back to give ourselves a few more ticks. We get out of here, we get some kind of signal to your Coalition, and then we come back for him.”

“What if he doesn’t come back from that rift?” James asked.

“He will.”

“But how do you know?”

Adam looked away from the Alteans, glancing down at James with a slight frown.

“You need to start thinking harder,” Adam told him. “Really look at the situation, James. It’s like car trunks and airlocks. Why are you two here? You were brought to give them information on how to find that mech, right? And how many pilots have died trying to retrieve it?”

“Three?” James sounded uncertain. It was a little bit frustrating that the Garrison had focused on teaching their pilots functional skills but not critical thinking.

“Three pilots are dead,” Adam confirmed. “So that mech is very important to this Honerva lady. There’s no way she’s kidnapping anyone else from Earth now that they’re on high alert, Lance is her last chance to get it. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who throws her last chance away, and she’s very calm right now. She believes a Paladin can do this.”

Adam didn’t know anything about Honerva, this was the first time he’d ever even seen what the witch the Galra called Haggar looked like. But Lance knew of her, he’d clearly come across her before, and she seemed to be aware of what Lance was capable of. Adam hadn’t seen these kids in a handful of years, but during that time they’d been at war. If an enemy soldier thought Lance capable of pulling off something stupid and dangerous, then so did Adam.

There was little to do now but wait. They didn’t have any timepiece to count down a varga, but Adam had been living with this time system for long enough that he knew when the last doboshes were ticking down. They kept a watch on the Alteans, waiting for a decent moment to make a run for it. They were all eagerly waiting to see if this Sincline materialized, Adam was sure only a smaller group of them would try to chase down the escapees while the others stayed here.

The sign Adam and James were waiting for came in the form of two Alteans suddenly becoming very interested in something they could see out the window. The others all gathered and a pale man pulled on a headset, hailing the pod. He told them to go around to the other side of the hub, where a bigger hangar with a larger airlock was located.

Adam couldn’t see what was going on, but from the looks on their faces something was wrong. There was a hallway behind Honerva’s lab area that probably led to this secondary hangar, they were starting to gather to go down it when something hit the outpost. The entire hub was rocked so hard several Alteans lost their footing, and Adam barely managed to stay upright as James toppled over.

“What the hell just happened?” James groaned.

“Our distraction,” Adam answered. As the Alteans disappeared down the hallway, Honerva included, he popped open the emergency panel and pulled the red lever. The inner airlock slid slowly open, the two pilots rolling under it without waiting for it to open fully.

There turned out to be a set of stairs on either side of the airlocks and they split up so neither would get in the other’s way, sprinting up to the catwalk and then up the second staircases toward the next level. Adam slowed as he reached the top, peeking up over the floor to look for any enemies. There was nobody, except for James’ head popping up at the top of the other staircase a moment later. It was some kind of platform with a railing at the edge. They met back up and made their way over, crouching down to not be seen as they looked down into what was indeed the secondary hangar. It took up half of the diameter of the hub and stretched up across all three levels.

“Jesus Christ,” Adam breathed.

There were two massive mechs standing at attention on either side of the hangar, bigger than any single-pilot ship Adam had ever seen. They were dark and dormant at the moment, pilotless, and upon closer look seemed to be still under construction.

“One of those things hit Earth right after we took down Sendak,” James whispered. “It almost wiped out Lance and his whole team. Even when they brought it down, it had a self-destruct with a range that would have wiped out Earth. The Paladins almost got killed getting it out of our atmosphere.”

“Then they’re just as much bad news as they look,” Adam murmured. “They don’t look done yet, maybe we don’t have to worry about them. But I’m guessing that creepy thing is Sincline.”

A third mech was lying on its side in between the inner and outer airlock doors. It was just as huge as the two unfinished ones, but somehow looked more sinister and alien. It had the kind of design that gave the appearance of a perfectly honed predator, two spots that looked like eyes glowing softly.

The inner airlock door finished opening, and Sincline’s cockpit entrance fell open. Adam bit back an exclamation as Lance stepped shakily out, falling several yards and hitting the floor so hard he could hear the helmet bounce off its surface even from all the way up here. The pod lay back behind him, its canopy slowly opening as well. Acxa stumbled out, looking a little off balance but otherwise fine.

Lance fought with his helmet. He pulled it off, stumbling forward, and threw it to the side. His hands went to his throat like he couldn’t breathe, and he fell.

“Holy shit,” James said it before Adam could.

Lance’s brown hair was streaked through with a dusky purple color, and his eyes were glowing. Not as brightly as the dead pilot’s, but there were soft embers of light floating off of them in a similar fashion as his body tried to shed excess quintessence. Under his eyes were what Adam initially thought was blood, but as one of the Altean’s reached him and rolled him over he could see they were skin markings.

They were dark red, the same color as Honerva’s, but while the rift had extended them slightly beyond what the other Alteans sported they weren’t a jagged mess like the deceased pilot.

“Lotor?” One of the Alteans, the man who had been in charge of the guard, was asking two others who were inspecting the Sincline. Adam’s gaze bounced over to them as they extracted a second body. This one had purple skin, similar to the Galra, and long white hair.

“Alive!” The woman helping to pull him out called. “Looks like Sincline protected him from exposure!”

“He’s cold, but warming up,” the man with her added. “The emergency cryostasis must have kicked in, it probably just turned off when Sincline was powered back up.”

Acxa finally got her footing and ran past them, joining the druid woman at Lance’s side. She started checking his pulse, leaning down to listen for any signs of breathing.

“Get Lotor to the healing pod, and somebody help me!” She commanded. “Natille, get me something to cut this fabric!”

The druid woman kneeling with her disappeared for a moment, probably back to the lab, and then reappeared with scissors. Acxa sliced down the center of the top of Lance’s prison uniform, yanking the fabric back to get the seams out of the way. She laced her fingers together and started doing chest compressions, spitting out commands to the Alteans milling around her.

Adam didn’t understand most of it. Medical jargon was hard enough on Earth, but Galra had completely different terms. Natille and the guard captain scurried to obey, returning to her with some vials and a syringe. Acxa stopped what she was doing just long enough to grab them, doing her best to mix two chemicals by eye and shaking the syringe to blend them.

She slammed it down into Lance’s chest, depressing the plunger quickly before yanking it back out and throwing it out of her way. She began to compress again, but had only pressed down twice when Lance loudly sucked in a breath of air and started to choke. Acxa rolled him over onto his side, but even though he was breathing again he was still visibly weakening.

Adam was looking desperately for some way to draw their attention elsewhere so he could get down there when Honerva appeared. At some point she had disappeared into the other room, likely accompanying the man they called Lotor until he was in the healing pod. Now she returned, approaching and crouching down next to Lance.

She reached down and lifted his head to see him better. Honerva tilted his head back and forth critically, running a thumb across one of the red marks, letting him go to examine the lighter streaks running through his hair.

“He was hiding his lineage,” Natille frowned. “Camouflaging his colors. But he’s definitely not one of ours. And he remembered Kova, I saw it in his memories. He must have survived Altea’s destruction in cryosleep with the princess and her advisor, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“He hid nothing,” Honerva answered. She let Lance go and rose back to her feet. “Exposure is simply waking what was dormant. But you’re correct that his lineage is different from any of yours, that is why you were unable to force him to cooperate. Put him into the extractor pod, quickly, before he loses more strength.”

“What’s an extractor pod sound like to you?” Adam whispered.

“Probably that second tube, the one Lance said they used to drain Alteans,” James answered. He watched them move Lance into a stretcher, and the group disappear quickly back through the hall to the lab. “Maybe to drain all that glowy crap out of him? I don’t know. What do we do?”

“We have to go,” Adam decided. “If they haven’t noticed we’re gone yet in the excitement, they will any minute. It sounds like they’re trying to save him, so for now we just have to believe they want him alive.”

He absolutely hated to leave Lance behind, but if they got caught again they would be held under even tighter measures. He and James would be used to keep Lance compliant, and they’d all be stuck here until their usefulness finally ran out and they were likely killed. If there were friends out there listening for an emergency signal, or some way to get out into open space where they could find help, that was their mission right now. It was the best way to help both themselves and Lance.

“So I guess we can assume Lance is at least partly related to the Alteans,” Adam mused. “That was why he could open all the doors in this hub. If we can get out to a more populated area, where they don’t tend to go, we might be safer. Hub Five is an open port for supplies, that’s where we’ll be able to blend in easiest, and the areas between here and there are probably keyed only to open for Galra.”

Across the platform was a door, they ran to it and Adam carefully checked out in the hallway to see if any of their captors were there. They hadn’t gotten up here yet, which was a relief. A few yards down were the stairs.

“Elevator!” James whispered, spotting the closed doors a little further down.

He jogged over to it and tried the lock panel with his hand, but as expected it didn’t work. Crossing his fingers, he brought his prosthetic foot up, pressing the black metal to it. A green light flashed and the door slid open. Adam slipped inside, smashing repeatedly at what looked like a “close door” button before hitting the command for the lowest level.

The elevator began to descend. It wasn’t exactly slow, but Adam could tell the silence in the small space was heightening James’ anxiety, and the way it briefly paused at each floor with a soft “ding” was certainly building up the suspense. Adam tensed every time it did, preparing to throw the first punch at anyone who appeared on the other side of the door if it opened.

But none of the Alteans showed up. If they were lucky, most of them didn’t realize James had any Galra tech on him, and they assumed that without Lance the two of them couldn’t open any doors and so were hiding in the labs somewhere.

When the door did open, it was to complete darkness. Adam stepped out into it confidently, but James shuffled out slower. When the elevator door closed and cut off all the light, he audibly walked into a wall and let out a curse.

For Adam, the darkness receded as his cybernetic eyes adjusted. The blackness dissipated into the green tones of night vision, overlaid with the natural colors his brain processed into the images from his memory. He reached back to grab James’ wrist, pulling him along down a hallway.

“Trust me and walk,” he commanded, not slowing down when James nearly tripped. “There’s nothing in your way, and I’ll guide you around anything that is.”

“Where are we?” James asked. “It smells like…a hospital.”

Adam was pulled to a sudden halt as James planted his feet, refusing to go any further.

“This is where those psychos cut off my leg!”

“And dug out my eyes, yeah,” Adam agreed. He let go of James’ arm and came around behind him, using the fact that the younger pilot couldn’t see in the dark to his advantage as he shoved him along. “Relax, there’s nobody here this time of night. We’re just going to get ourselves some spare parts and get out of here.”

The infirmary, if it could be called that, was behind locked doors. Adam had wandered these halls at night before, but he had never been able to get into any of the rooms. He knew what was here because he’d been brought here after particularly violent arena matches, he’d spent plenty of time in the various small rooms either being treated or recovering. And he’d had more than enough emergency surgery in the last year and a half to know where all the really good stuff was.

“Here, this door,” he whispered, stopping in front of the surgical unit. He helped guide James’ prosthetic to the lock pad, barely suppressing a sound of excited victory when the light turned green and the door clicked open. “You might want to stay out here, but if you do come in make sure you cover your mouth and nose.”

Adam took his own advice, pulling the neck of his uniform up over his face and holding it there. The surgical unit of the outpost arena was nothing like the clean and sterile hospitals that probably awaited Galra citizens elsewhere, it was basically a chop shop. Patients were slapped on the hard metal slabs here, under painfully blinding lights with their limbs strapped down. They got anesthesia, but it was only so the surgeon didn’t have to listen to them make noises, and it was administered in such a hit-or-miss fashion that it wasn’t unusual for that to be more fatal than the surgery.

The steel floor was installed at a very faint slant that let blood run along it into the gutters at the edges. It got hosed down maybe once a week, and the strong antiseptic smell that mixed with the lingering scents of death and viscera was just a strong chemical agent they poured between cleanings to stop everything from getting too sticky.

Adam did not turn on any lights, but it was more for James’ sake than out of any fear of being caught. The latest “patient” was still laid out on one of the slabs, strapped down right where he’d died. Adam couldn’t identify his species, but his chest was still lying cut open, just as it had been left when the staff had decided to move on to a more interesting, still living project.

The doors at the back didn’t have any locks, they opened easily when Adam pushed on one. He moved out of the horror movie scene and into what looked like a spare parts shop, a small storage room that held some shelves with the latest prosthetics. This—and probably other arenas like it throughout the Galra empire—was where new models of medical technology got tested on living subjects. Unapproved, fairly dangerous products that linked into the brain and could very easily have a ton of bugs that could short circuit and kill the user.

Adam had experienced such problems with his eyes before. They worked pretty well now, after two repairs and an upgrade. James’ leg seemed to be a newer model with some fancy perks as well, with luck it would function just fine until they got back to Earth and could get engineers to make sure it was completely safe.

“Here we go,” Adam grinned as he used the lowest shelf as a ladder rung, reaching up to pull a tray down from the top.

The shelves held all sorts of different prosthetics, from full legs to just feet to metal bone replacements. There were full arms, single fingers, a strange sleeve that went over the heart to augment it, and what looked like a really creepy spine replacement. But what Adam was interested in where the hands.

Many species were bigger than humans, so the hands here definitely wouldn’t have fit  him or James. But as he powered one up and watched the stiff, statuesque fingers relax into a more natural pose he knew that they would be useful anyway.

Adam took two, grabbing an organ transplant bag and tucking the second one away into it. He grabbed some wires and tools, some spare parts, a tablet, and anything else that might be of use. When he was done he rejoined James, who was standing very still in the middle of the surgical unit and looking around wildly like he expected something to come at him in the dark.

“Okay, let’s go,” Adam whispered before he reached out to take James’ arm again, not wanting to startle him into screaming. The younger pilot was only too glad to get back out into the hallway. “One more stop and we’re on our way.”

“We need to get on our way now!” James hissed. “They’ll come looking for us any minute!”

“That’s fine, we’re on my turf now,” Adam answered. “And we’re about to even the playing field.”

He pulled James down the hall, bypassing the elevator and going to the stairs up to the second level. Pressing the prosthetic hand to the lock panel, he was rewarded with the door sliding open. That was a relief, it meant that they would be able to move through the outpost without having James constantly drawing attention by kicking locks.

The area they came up in was on the opposite side of the arena from the cell block James and Lance had been held in. This was the long term block, and at the moment it was empty. Its other two residents would be out wandering as well, one of them likely out in the arena itself practicing her martial arts and the other off somewhere that was simply more comfortable to sleep in than the holding cells. It was lighter here, James could see on his own, so Adam let him go to run ahead to a tunnel that led into the arena.

Adam didn’t go through the second gate to go out into the fighting zone. Instead he stopped here and pressed the hand to another lock, making a panel slide open to reveal the contents of one of the arena’s weapons lockers. He grabbed his staff, smirking a little as he split it in half and twirled the two familiar weights in his hands. James caught up to him as he pulled on a belt, sliding the two pieces into the slots at either side of his hips where they could be drawn quickly.

“Okay, this is the kind of pit stop I can get behind,” James grinned, pulling out a blaster in a holster. He strapped it on and also took a knife. Adam slid a machete into his weapon belt, and a small pistol blaster as backup. He took the hunting knife out of James’ belt and handed him a long, curvy blade instead.

“As long as you’re on this outpost, the blaster is absolutely a last resort,” Adam warned. “This place is pieced together like a house of cards, one stray shot could wreck the integrity of half a hub. Blade first, and only if necessary.”

When they were suitably armed, they moved a few doors down to a room where new arrivals—and deceased competitors—had their clothing and valuables stripped. There were lots of boxes to go through, but they resorted to quickly digging through the lowest ones to find clothing to cover their prison uniforms. It wasn’t the most fashionable, or even the cleanest, but it did the job.

Across the hall was Ryla’s office, and Adam made sure to stop there. He went to the small safe under her desk, where he knew she kept the money she used for her under the table gambling operation. He had won her enough over the long months with his arena matches that he felt more than entitled to take two of the many neatly banded stacks of GAC she had stowed away.

“Cover as much of your face as possible, but absolutely make sure your ears are hidden,” Adam advised James as they left the office, adjusting his hood. “Humans have distinct ears, once the guards realize we’re gone that’s one of the first things they’ll list as identifying traits when they put out the alarm.”

“This is so insane,” James murmured as they made their way to the door that would take them out of the arena hub and give them their first steps toward partial freedom. “Like, we’re dressed up like space hipsters and we’re about to stroll into Galra Central in the hopes that if we just look confident enough nobody will look at us twice. This would all be a lot easier if Lance had his Lion.”

“I’m pretty sure everything would be a lot easier if Lance had a Lion,” Adam agreed, pressing the Galra hand against the lock pad. The door slid quietly open, giving them access to a hall lined in mismatched carpet pieces that gave the muffled impression of walking between airport terminals.

“It really would. You have to see these things when you get back to Earth, they’re huge,” James smoothed down the top he wore and adjusted his own hood to make sure his ears were covered, trying to walk as if he belonged here in case anyone appeared. “And they’re mechanical, but they really seem like they’re alive.”

“Sounds pretty amazing,” Adam answered as they reached the end of the hall. He used the hand again, opening the door to give them access to what he thought was Hub Three. “I hope I get to see one sometime.”

* * * * * * * * * *

 ** _Years Ago_** :

It was a Friday night at the end of September, the kind of warm New Mexico night when the teachers and pilots who weren’t on duty for the weekend got together in town to have drinks. The students who regularly drove them insane were under lock and key in their dorms at the Garrison, making town a safe haven for the adults who wanted to escape from them.

Friday night in general was town night. Not necessarily to hit the bar, although that happened often enough. Sometimes it was dinner or a movie or just late night grocery shopping so it didn’t have to be done over the weekend.

If anybody had ever told Adam when he was young that he would be spending a Friday night, at only twenty-four years old, sitting on a desert cliff drinking whiskey straight out of the bottle and contemplating where everything had crashed and burned he wouldn’t have believed it. But here he was, half drunk and steadily working toward that finish line, listening to a staticy oldies station only barely coming through on the poor reception the FM radio got out here.

Nights got cool out here, but there was no wind and his small fire crackled quietly nearby. His rock climbing gear was behind him in his tent, along with the pack that had enough provisions for the weekend he intended to spend here in the cliffs. The forecast was clear, painted with end of summer temperatures that left him thankful for the drop in the air when the sun went down.

His phone beeped next to him for the second time in the last six hours. Reception out here was spotty at best, even up here on the cliff, so Adam was in no hurry to check on it. It was likely he was receiving messages that had been left for him hours ago, the senders were probably already upset they’d been ignored.

He sat there for another forty minutes, until the phone beeped again. Adam finally got to his feet and picked it up, grabbing the whiskey bottle and wandering toward the edge of the wide ledge. He took a sip while he dialed his voicemail, putting it on speaker. Four messages spanning the afternoon and evening.

 _“Your sister just had the baby_ ,” the first message rang out in his mother’s voice, holding no warmth or pleasantry. She was curt, succinct, just in case he ever forgot that she didn’t like to speak to him unless she had to. “ _A boy. She’ll probably call you once she’s recovered. You need to tell her you’re too busy to visit, she had a hard enough time with the labor without having to deal with you coming here. I don’t think I need to tell you how much trouble it will cause if you show up.”_

The message clicked as she hung up. Adam took another sip from the bottle as the next message came up.

_“Adam, it’s Sophia. Congratulations, you’re an uncle! I know you have a lot on your plate and that you don’t have a lot of time between being a pilot and teaching, but could you maybe come see us? He’s so precious Adam, you have to see him! I know all new mothers say that, but he’s so…he’s so amazing. His name is Gabriel. Please call me when you get a chance! I love you.”_

_“Yeah, Adam, it’s me,”_ the third message came up, his father’s gruff voice. Mostly indifferent as always, more annoyed at being caught up in the middle of things than interested in taking a side. _“Your mother’s here freaking out, she called you a couple hours ago and you still haven’t called her back. I know she’s a pain to talk to sometimes, but get back to her when you get a chance. She’s having a stroke thinking you’re going to show up without giving her a chance to prepare. You know how she is. Try to get back to her before she drives us all nuts.”_

 _“Hey Adam, it’s Enzo,”_ the voice of Adam’s older brother came next, hushed as if he was trying not to be overheard. “ _You probably already heard, but Sophia had the baby. Look man, we haven’t seen you in over two years and we really miss you. Don’t you want to see us? And don’t you want to see your new nephew? I just heard from one of your ex-girlfriends yesterday that you’re not with that guy anymore, don’t you think now is a good time to make up with everybody? Just tell Mom it was a phase. She’ll take you to church, she’ll cry over it for a little while, and she’ll get over it. You like girls, just stick with them from now on and everybody will be happy. You don’t have to keep this stupid fight up on principle. It’s almost the holidays, you could come back for Christmas again. Just think about it, okay? You’re fighting a losing battle here, man, please just give it up so you can come home.”_

Adam deleted the messages one by one, taking a few more sips from the whiskey bottle as he did. He swayed a little on his feet and decided he’d had enough for now, returning to his tent to cap it. Dropping back down into his spot he typed out a brief text.

_Hey Sophia, congratulations! I’m so happy for you and Mark! I wish I could come see you, but it’s not that easy to get away from the base. Maybe sometime soon, but I don’t want to make a promise I may not be able to keep. Tell Gabriel happy birthday from me. I love you all._

He sent it off and tossed the phone to the ground beside him, leaning back on both hands and looking up at the vast ocean of space up above.  So full of stars, so full of light, out here where it was dark enough to see even the gentle clouds of the Milky Way. Adam looked from star to star, hazily naming off each of them and their constellations. He had known them all ever since he was a small child in Brazil, when his grandfather would take him out fishing at night and teach him the seemingly endless secrets of the evening sky.

Another innocuous little beep came, this time from his watch. Just a tiny sound, but enough to ruin Adam’s night even further. He looked down at the offending accessory, turning off the noise.

It was 9:30, time for a dose of Xenazine. It was a medication that specifically targeted the involuntary muscle spasms caused by Huntington’s Disease, there were two refills left in the prescription. Adam didn’t have the bottle anymore, he didn’t even live in the apartment where the bottle still sat in the medicine cabinet. But the information was still written in his memory after years of keeping track, and the daily reminder alarms still went off on his watch.

He looked toward the eastern horizon, in the direction where Kerberos would be this time of year. In the direction where a shuttle had gone several months ago, only to crash to its doom on the surface of Pluto's moon last week. Everywhere Adam looked in the last few days, the photos of the ill-fated crew were shoved into his face along with blaring headlines about the pilot's failure. Adam had parted ways with Takashi Shirogane the day before the mission launch, he'd had several months to move on, but the news of the three deaths still hit him hard.

It made his heart hurt, and after a moment it also made his eyes sting.

He got up and dusted himself off, stomping out his fire. It took him about half an hour to collapse and stow the small tent and the few things he had with him, and shortly after that he was back to climbing. It was dangerous to do at night, especially alone and with only a small first aid kit, but his judgement was impaired and he needed to do something to stop himself from thinking too much.

Adam was a strong climber. Takashi had always been a gym guy, he liked to go from the machines to the weights to the basketball court in a climate controlled environment. But Adam preferred the dirt and grit of reality, the open air and the sting of rock cutting into his fingers. He felt most alive when there was in contact with the natural world, out here where the only thing he could possibly have on his mind was his surroundings if he wanted to stay alive and uninjured.

Clear nights were good for visibility. Adam’s climb took him up, but also to the west and down some. Over cliffs, under overhangs, around ledges. He climbed until his muscles screamed in protest, until his fingers were scraped and bloodied too much to continue. He had to stop on a ledge to rest, taking stock of himself.

He was a mess. The climbing pants and t-shirt he wore kept him mostly protected, but his forearms were scraped and splotched in places where blood had mixed with rock dust. He could feel the sting of a cut on his cheek and knew his hair was all over the place, whipped into chaos by the breeze mixed with sweat. The wrappings on his hands protected his palms, but his fingertips were sore and raw.

Adam sat on the thin ledge and leaned back against the rock face, looking out over the dark crags below. He closed his eyes and let the cool air sink into his skin, listening to the cliffs.

They sang to him, it was one of the reasons he liked coming out here. It wasn’t so much a sound as a feeling, a caress on the air that enveloped him in moments of quiet. It calmed the inner unrest and turmoil, wrapped him up in a pleasant blanket of reassurance. It was weak in some places, stronger in others, but Adam had to admit that he had never felt it quite as strongly as he did tonight.

Tonight it was palpable. Not just a song that pleasantly called, but a physical pull that made him want to move. It wasn’t what Adam would call urgent but it was definitely insistent, and before he was even aware he was back on his feet and edging along the ledge. About five minutes along he reached a crevice in the rock wall, a ghostly blue glow filtering out from the stone.

Curiously, Adam peeked through the crack into what looked like a narrow cave tunnel. There were strange markings on the walls that were eerily backlit, throwing off light that didn’t look natural. He carefully squeezed through the opening to get a better look at some that were near, running his fingers over the indentations in the stone.

They were sharp, clear. These weren’t the cave carvings of indigenous peoples that Adam had often studied in his anthropology electives, they had been marked into the rock with some kind of advanced tool. There had to be some kind of layer within the carvings, he thought, some kind of residue that lit up when something specific happened to cause a reaction. He wasn’t a chemist to know what those might be, but he was sure that was the only way these things could be casting this blue glow.

The tunnel itself was brightly lit with carvings, effectively marking the way through. Adam wasn’t experienced with cave exploration and he was reluctant to go any further, but that pull was becoming harder to ignore.

He dug into his pack and pulled out a small flashlight, then grabbed his anti-glare glasses from the inside pocket and slid them onto his face. They dulled the glow of the carvings a little and let him get a better look as he walked, taking in the shapes. Groups of people raising their arms in praise of something large and humanoid-shaped, lots of weird shapes, and plenty of markings that looked like the rough shape of a mountain lion.

Every now and then Adam would pause, dipping his fingers into his pouch of climbing chalk and marking the wall with the direction he’d gone in. He was afraid of going too deep into the cliffside and not being able to find his way out, especially if the tunnel system began to branch out farther in.

He needn’t have been worried. As he went around a curve he was brought to a stop by a dead end, where light was shining up from another crevice in the floor. Adam leaned over to look down, into a cavern below where he could hear flowing water echoing upward. The open space was lit with blue, and down below was a very strange sight.

Adam wasn’t sure at first what he was even seeing. It looked like a net of light, a perfect bubble around something very big and metallic. From above he wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew he’d found _something_ of interest.

He looked around and found a decent sized rock, which he pushed over the edge of the crevice. As he watched it bounced off the blue bubble, disappearing out of view. There were no sparks and no change in the net’s surface, it didn’t seem to be set to react to anything touching it.

“Solid,” he murmured, looking back the way he’d come. It definitely wasn’t safe to go down there, especially not alone, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever find this place again if he left. “Here goes nothing, I guess.”

He pulled his ropes out of his bag, setting a spike and lowering himself carefully down into the cavern. When he reached the strange bubble he stretched a foot out, gingerly touching it and tensing in case it had some kind of defense system. When nothing happened he stepped down onto it, letting go of the rope and crouching down to touch it.

“A force field,” he murmured to himself, balancing carefully on the curved surface. “That is so cool.”

The thing under the force field was even cooler. It was huge, standing at least three stories, blue and silver and very impressive. It looked like the cave carvings, or rather the carvings looked like it. The pull here was too strong to ignore, it had to be coming from this cat thing.

_Lion._

It wasn’t a word that came into his head, more like an impression or a thought. And it happened just before the force field dissipated.

Adam let out an unholy shriek as he was suddenly standing on nothing, plummeting down toward the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact, but what he ended up hitting was far closer. He heard metal clang as his boots bounced off, and he rolled down an incline until he hit something hard. Slowly opening his eyes, he found that the cat…or rather, the lion…had moved under him. It had caught him with its nose, leaving him to roll down against the space between its eyes.

“Whoa,” he breathed, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

He moved to adjust his glasses out of habit but found they were gone, probably dropped in his fall. Adam immediately forgot about them in the face of his find as the lion moved again, this time lowering its head down until he gently slid down its nose to the ground.

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly, absently rubbing his arm where he’d hit his elbow on the metal.

The lion’s eyes were glowing softly, as if it were looking at him. Adam got the distinct impression it— _she_ —was considering him critically. Adam straightened up, running one hand through his hair as the other smoothed down his shirt, like a child suddenly caught making trouble by an adult.

“Sorry, I’m usually a lot more presentable,” he said self consciously. “A solid ten after a shower, I promise. And normally not drunk enough to fall through holes or talk to robots, but here we are.”

He looked around the cavern, at the glowing carvings that lined the walls. Behind him was an underground stream, fed by a waterfall that came down from a hole in the wall, and the floor around the lion also had a big, round carving in it. He turned slowly in place, looking at it all, until he was facing the lion again.

“So…” he said slowly, scratching the back of his head. “You, uh, come here often, beautiful?”

He jumped as she suddenly moved again, her mouth opening as it reached ground level. A ramp came  down, opening what looked like an entrance into the lion’s inner workings. Adam hesitated for a minute, but his curiosity won out in the end. Lights flickered on around him as he stepped up into it, past what looked like some kind of laser focusing system and through a doorway.

As he stepped into the lion itself, he found what looked like a small storage area on his left. There was a bed built in, with a table that had a single drawer, and the rest of the space was open with a few storage lockers. This was a space meant for a prolonged stay, which gave him a suspicion as to what he would find behind the door to his right.

As he stepped up to it the door slid open and he was proven correct. It was a cockpit, blue lights flickering on as he stepped inside.

“You’re a ship,” he breathed, stepping forward to sit in the pilot seat. “Oh, shit!”

The seat slid forward into piloting position, blue overlays beginning to light up around him. The front and side panels of the cockpit lit up as viewscreens, giving him a 180-degree view of the cavern outside. As Adam looked around in wonder, he began to feel ideas being pushed into his head, alien thoughts flitting through his mind giving him glimpses of concepts.

How the ship flew, where she had come from, her brothers and sisters in her new pride of five. Flashes of battles and feelings of danger swept over him, a myriad of thoughts and feelings and topics flickering through his brain at the speed of an excitedly babbling child telling a parent everything they had missed while they were at work that day. Adam sat calmly in the pilot seat, his head cocked to the side curiously, not fighting any of it. He let it flow through, doing his best to keep up, as he would when dealing with an overstimulated student.

He got the gist of it. There was a war, Blue was one of five weapons that combined into a greater one. The enemy was looking for them, but as far as she knew all was still safe. Still, time was ticking away, as members of the enemy army had arrived on Earth within the last two decades. She was an alien ship far from home and alone, and soon it would be time for her to go. She was just waiting.

“Waiting…for what?” Adam asked.

He was acutely aware he was talking to a sentient robot. He was also very aware that he’d had a lot of alcohol today, and that he was only about eighty percent sure that what he’d indulged in earlier hadn’t contained any peyote. This whole encounter was rapidly dropping that certainty percentage.

“Soldiers,” Adam said out loud when Blue reached out to him. “One for each Lion.”

He had an idea of what she wanted from him. She wanted him to pilot, it was her song that had been calling to him all these years since he’d first been drawn to the Garrison. She wanted him to find four others that were meant for her pride. She needed people to help them win this war that was supposedly happening far across the universe.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” Adam murmured, absently rubbing at his aching arm again. “I mean, I can try. But I’m a teacher, I’m military. I can’t just drop everything and go scouring the world for these special people. But if what you’re telling me is right and they’ll all eventually gather in this area, I can try to look for them.

“After that, I don’t think I’m the one you’re looking for. You just missed the world’s best pilot by a few months, he died last week on Kerberos. Takashi was the kind of pilot you want, he was the kind who took risks and didn’t worry about consequences. There’s no way I could just fuck off to space and not constantly wonder if everything was okay here on Earth.”

He felt a vibration run through the seat, almost like a reassuring purr, and more overlays began to activate. He saw the targeting system lock onto a huge opening in the rock back in the darkness across the underground stream, saw the path light up on his screen to show the way the Lion had taken to enter the cavern and how she could leave it now. She wanted him to get a feel for it, to see that he could do it.

 _Just a quick shot around the solar system_ , that was the impression he got as she tried to talk him into it.

It was a numbing thought, that this ship could get him out to the far reaches of Pluto’s orbit, around the sun, and back in less time than it would take his Jeep to get him back to the Garrison. Barely an hour, at leisure speed, when Earth’s most advanced ship had taken months to get that far.

The Kerberos mission. A months-long mission Takashi had been willing to leave him for. To abandon Keith for. To basically die for. And Adam had now found a ship that could have gotten them out there to get their samples and then had them back in less than a day. Things hadn't needed to play out the way they had.

Adam was reaching for the controls when his phone started to ring in his pocket, making him jump. He pressed a hand to his chest, sure he was going to have a heart attack as he pulled it out.

“Jesus Christ, do you improve cell reception too?” Adam asked Blue as he looked at the unfamiliar number flashing across the screen. It was probably somebody else from his family calling to ground him into the dirt a little bit more, he figured he might as well get it over with. “Hello?”

“Hello?” The voice on the other end was familiar, but it wasn’t family. It was young, and nervous. Adam knew he should be able to place it, but he was having a bit of a rough night. “Is…is this Professor Wolfe? This is Hunk, Hunk Garrett, from your flight class?”

“Hunk?” Adam asked in surprise, quickly checking the time on his phone. “It’s almost one in the morning. How did you even get my number?”

“I’m really sorry, Lance had it written in the back of his school agenda, and I didn’t want to call you but I know he comes to talk to you a lot and it’s kind of an emergency since he’s gone and I don’t know where he went—”

“Slow down,” Adam requested, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. He got up from the pilot seat, slowly beginning to pace the cockpit. “Start from the beginning. Lance is gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know,” Hunk said miserably. “I think he might be going back home. He did his first class today on the fighter level and went really bad, he didn’t talk to anybody all night and then when I woke up a little bit ago he was gone along with a bunch of his stuff. He’s not answering his phone when I call.”

“Really bad,” Adam repeated, wincing. He should have been there today to teach that class, but he’d taken the day off to start his weekend early and try to unwind. “Define really bad.”

“Iverson ran the class,” Hunk said dully. “Before they even got started in the simulator he told Lance he was only there because Kogane dropped out and that he hoped he didn’t screw it up. He said it in front of everybody, it psyched Lance out and he crashed halfway through the class.”

“Oh no,” Adam groaned. “God, that fucking idiot. Shit, Hunk, you didn’t hear me say that…just relax, okay? I’ll find Lance. If anybody notices he’s gone before we’re back, just stall them. Tell them he’s with me going over the flight text or something. I’ll have him call you once I’m with him.”

He sighed and hung up the phone, dialing a familiar number. Lance McClain, one of his flight students. It was no secret most of the Garrison—Iverson included—felt that Lance only had high enough scores to qualify for fighter class when a spot opened up because Adam favored him and gave him unfairly high marks. It pissed Adam off, because they blatantly ignored his natural skills as a pilot in favor of gossip and rumor.

Adam knew Lance was sensitive about fitting in. He could do a dozen amazing, impossible things, but all it took was one mistake to send him crashing and make him believe he was worthless. Keith, Takashi’s little delinquent, was a thorn in Adam’s side in that regard. Adam didn’t know the kid very well and he didn’t want to, he was hostile and sometimes aggressive. What he did know was that on more than one occasion Keith had sabotaged Lance’s flights out of his own boredom, and that had terrible consequences on Lance’s performance and so on his flight record.

Adam had to admit that he did have a soft spot for Lance. He had ever since the kid’s orientation day before his first year, when Lance had been breathlessly trying to translate the school officials’ English to Spanish for his mother, which was difficult for a thirteen-year-old who didn’t understand everything. Adam’s second language was Spanish and English his third, he had stepped in to help out and found them endearing people. Mrs. McClain did know some English, but they’d only moved to California from Cuba in the last few years and she was still learning.

Lance had immediately reminded him of a young Takashi, and he’d only grown closer to and more fond of the kid as time went by.

Lance didn’t answer his phone at first, which had Adam pacing all the way out of the cockpit and into the Lion’s storage bay. He hung up and dialed again, sighing in relief when he heard Lance tiredly answer.

“Hey, Adam.”

“Where are you?” Adam asked immediately. “Why aren’t you in your dorm?”

“How do you even know I’m not in my dorm? You’re not even supposed to be back until Sunday,” Lance complained. “Did Hunk turn me in?”

“That doesn’t matter, where are you?” Adam prompted again. He frowned, listening for sounds in the background. “Are you in a car?”

“Yeah the bus station is closed so a guy is giving me a ride part of the way,” Lance murmured.

“A guy?” Adam asked, stupefied. “Oh my God, you’re hitchhiking?”

“Well it’s not like I have my own car!”

“Lance, that isn’t safe! That’s like, the complete opposite of safe!” Adam exclaimed. “Why are you even going anywhere, why didn’t you just call me and tell me something was wrong?”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Lance said quietly. “I know things are rough for you with everything going on with the Kerberos mission and that you really needed some time for yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Adam answered fiercely. “You should have called me and waited, I would have gotten back to you as soon as your message came through. I will always be there when you need me, Lance. Look, tell the guy you’re with that you got through to somebody who can give you a ride. Have him drop you off somewhere…a gas station, a convenience store, anything that’s open all night. Then you call me and tell me where you are and you sit there and wait for me to get there.”

“I’m already two hours out, you’ll be driving forever,” Lance replied.

“That’s fine, I’ll drive all night if I need to. As soon as you hang up, you text me the make, model, and color of the car you’re in. And don’t argue with me about it, even if the guy is perfectly legit I don’t want to take chances. I’m still at the cliffs but I’m heading back to my Jeep now, if you can’t get through once you’re out of the car leave me a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I have service again.”

“Okay, okay,” Lance relented.

“And text me about that car!”

“Okay!” Lance groaned. “Bye.”

Adam signed and hung up the phone, lightly pounding his head on the metal wall. That kid was going to get his dumb ass murdered one of these days when the wrong stranger offered him candy. It was ridiculous how smart he could be one moment but how stupid the next.

“Sorry,” Adam looked around at the inner walls of the Lion, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I can’t go off on a space ride right now, _I_ have people who are important to me.”

He made sure he still had his pack and then went back the way he came, out the entrance to the Lion’s mouth where she lowered the ramp for him to step off. He backed away from her as she moved to sit back up in the circle of glyphs, her force field flickering back into place as soon as he was far enough.

“I’ll come back,” he promised. “Eventually. I understand you need help with your war, and I will try. There are just other things I have to take care of right now.”

* * * * * * * * * *

 ** _Current day_** :

Adam tilted his head to trim the last lock of hair, letting it fall down into the wastebasket he was leaning over in the tiny bathroom.

It had taken them about forty doboshes to make their way to Hub Five, and they’d only had to knock out three night guards on the way. As they’d moved into the more populated public area they hadn’t needed to bother with that anymore, and had been able to comfortably walk right into the commercial district.

Hub Five was the biggest hub and a mainly non-Galra one, the only place left to its own devices as far as rule of law. The Galra came here occasionally when off the clock, when they didn’t have enough down time to go down to the planet below, to drink and gamble or spend their money on any number of the available alien men and women who frequented what was basically a pirate outpost.

The docking bays were the only places faction guards ever gathered, to make sure goods made it safely through to the other hubs. Adam and James had walked the area several times looking for a merchant who would be leaving soon and would be willing to take on passengers for a fee, but they hadn’t had any luck. Most did so out of security concerns, not wanting to let strangers hitch rides. Others did so because there was a storm brewing.

One of the other factions had shown an interest in this area of space, and rumor had it there were ships on the way to try and take the outpost from Fire of Purification hands. There was a no-fly order going into effect, and many of the ships already docked here weren’t going to risk leaving until they were sure of where this supposedly oncoming fleet was and where they could go to avoid it.

In the short term, Adam and James were stuck. The higher security meant James couldn’t send any Coalition signal from here without potentially letting the entire outpost know where they were, and they had no way of getting out into open space to do so safely.

They were currently settled in the small inn room they’d rented. James was out sitting on his bed and marveling at the “weird shit” that a Galra outpost considered acceptable TV, and Adam had laid claim on the bathroom for the last hour and a half.

He felt entitled to do so. It had been a while since he was able to use as much hot water as he wanted and to put on the new clothes they’d bought at one of the commercial stalls. They were still visibly smaller than many of the aliens here, but at least they fit in. And many of the space-worthy uniforms people around here wore had at least partial helmets, which meant their ears and much of their faces could be covered when they went out.

Adam tossed the scissors into the travel grooming kit he’d bought earlier and used a dry towel to pat away any stray hairs that might have fallen onto his shoulders. He finally stepped out into the room, toweling his damp head dry to a sarcastic wolf whistle from James.

“Look at that, you had a face under all that fur,” James cracked. “You look like yourself again instead of an intergalactic hobo.”

“Unless you got some extra stripes with your MFE assignment I still outrank you, don’t be a dick,” Adam answered without any heat as he dropped down to sit on the edge of his own bed. He looked over at the small digital clock on the table, completely different in its implications that one that might be found on Earth. “We have about four vargas until sunrise, but I think we’re safe enough here to sleep longer into the day. Get some rest, tomorrow we need to figure out how we’re going to steal a ship, rescue Lance, and get out of an essentially locked down Galra outpost without being blown to pieces.”

“That simple, huh?” James asked, turning off the viewscreen and stretching out on his bed. Adam did the same, turning off the light and dropping the room into darkness.

“Well, there are bound to be a few hiccups that come up, but we’ll iron those out when we get to them,” Adam answered. “Besides, we have a big advantage that makes us dangerous.”

“And that is?”

“We’re officially the only two humans on this station, and that makes us impossible to predict," Adam answered, closing his eyes. “Because compared to the rest of the universe, humans are batshit insane.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody reading this thought I wasn't going to torture the hell out of Keith with something like this, right? ...right?

The first sensation that came to him was sound, the low and muted melody of back and forth voices murmuring in harmony with the natural vibrations of the capsule in which he stood. His eyelids didn’t seem to want to open at first, only cracking slightly to let light flood into unprepared pupils and give him a fuzzy, incomplete view of the room.

_—an argument outside the tube, a green-tinted view of familiar faces waiting expectantly for him to open his eyes—_

Déjà vu, a wave of feeling like he’d been in this position once before, tired and confused and trying to place what was going on around him when he couldn’t clearly see or hear. He was inside something, separated from everyone else, but he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad.

— _trying to tap on the glass, wanting to open the pod right away, crossing his arms in sullen impatience when he was denied—_

His skin felt unnaturally warm, as if he’d just stepped inside and out of a winter-chilled wind, like his outside was reaching room temperature quicker than his frozen core. Sensation was returning to his body slowly, the tips of his fingers tingling in the manner of limbs that had been still for so long they’d fallen asleep.

_—so much concern, so much confusion, nobody really sure of how this was going to go. A general consensus that he was going to be all right but a web of questions written on visible faces_ —

He opened his eyes fully, blinking away the dullness of a sleep that felt unnatural. The tube itself had stimulated his muscles to keep him standing upright, but now its processes were winding down and he felt the weakness in his legs. He leaned against the side of the tube, sliding down to his knees and sucking in a deep breath of air. It felt like he’d only been breathing shallowly for a long time and needed to take in more oxygen.

The tube was some sort of medical pod, he could tell that much. For emergency care, maybe? He was wearing some kind of standard black and gray uniform that at one point had only been one piece, but the ragged seam around his waist said the top had been cut away and removed in a hurry. He could feel the stiffness of some kind of bandage on his face, just above the right side of his jaw, and his left wrist was wrapped.

He flexed his arm a little bit, picking at the wrappings. The skin under it itched as if he’d been wearing it for too long. As he moved his elbow hit the glass of the tube, making a loud knocking sound and silencing the voices outside.

He shifted to sit back on his heels, looking out through the tinted glass at the unfamiliar room. It was sort of rounded with a high ceiling, two airlocks at the far end, a wall of clear polymer allowing a view to space beyond.

Space. Were they in space? They had to be, that view was too clear for him to be seeing through an atmosphere. Wasn’t it?

He thought so, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything right now, not where he was or how he’d gotten here and definitely not whether he was in space.

Someone approached the glass from the outside, crouching down to look at him through it with interest. Another face appeared after that, and another. They all had different skin tones and likely weren’t related, so maybe they all worked at this place. But they all had brightly colored hair and pointed ears, and identical half-moon markings under their eyes in different shades.

He cocked his head to the side and returned their looks with a curiosity of his own. Who were these people? Did he know them? Did they know him? Did they put him in here, or had he come in here himself? Why was he in here in the first place?

“Uh, hi?” He tried, tiredly running a hand through his hair. “Can somebody help me out and maybe tell me where I am?”

The faces all turned to look at each other, then look back at him with confused expressions. One of them, a man with darker skin, leaned over the others to look down at him. He spoke in something that definitely sounded like words, but not quite. It was very familiar, he knew the accent and the sound, but the words themselves weren’t right. It was like what was being said was almost recognizable, but just short of being real words.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he frowned. “I’m sorry.”

Another one said something. She spoke slowly and loudly, as if that might somehow help. It didn’t.

“Yeah, I don’t know what you’re saying either,” he answered irritably. “But yelling it doesn’t make it better.”

They started talking to each other. A woman with very short aqua hair turned and left the group, who all continued to speak as if he weren’t there. Which didn’t really matter all that much since he didn’t know what they were saying. He understood that they were talking about him though, that much was clear.

After a minute, they all fell silent as somebody else came over. She was a tall woman, with skin a similar shade to his and white hair. The red marks under her eyes ran the length of her face, down over her lips, and she wore a strange, metal crown. She looked down at him, considering, and he considered her right back. Finally she spoke, using the same confusing mish-mash of almost words as the others.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he repeated. “I don’t know what any of you are saying.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly, but her expression didn’t change otherwise. She gave him the feeling he was being judged for something, analyzed and studied.

“I asked your name.”

_That_ he understood. He perked up, sitting up a little straighter. She understood what he said, she spoke his language. She did so a little haltingly, like she hadn’t done so in years, but she was clear and understandable.

“I…don’t know,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair again. “I was kind of hoping one of you would.  Along with where I am and why I’m in…whatever this is. And why are they staring at me?”

He was referring to the group who had parted for her arrival. They were still gathered at the sides of the tube, looking back and forth between him and the woman like they were experiencing some kind of performance art.

“You speak a very rare language that they don’t understand,” the woman answered. “They’re confused.”

She took a step back and turned to the one with the aqua hair. They spoke quietly, not that they needed to since he didn’t know what they said, occasionally glancing in his direction. He picked absently at his bandaged arm and continued looking around the strange room. There were some shelves of things he thought he recognized, little artifacts and objects, and what he knew was a healing pod next to his tube. That one had a tenant at the moment, a tall man with purple skin and long white hair.

The woman broke away from the group and approached again. She pushed some buttons on a keypad and the tube slid open, but she didn’t move to let him get out. Instead she reached down and touched his cheek, and he felt a wave of ice run over his skin and his vision faded to fireworks as a dam seemed to burst in his brain.

_—a blue-furred wolf popping into existance next to a soldier in red a tall man with a streak of white in his black hair a girl in green tinkering on a computer a tall boy with a headband and gloves a white-haired woman with iridescent eyes you are the worst pilot ever this isn’t your call you’re a paragon of leadership I told you to stay out of this are you joking you’re only here because the best dropped out I just don’t want to be stuck with him for eternity will somebody please shut him up just stop talking can you take him please—_

He didn’t like that. He didn’t like any of it, not the words or the degrading tone the voices spoke them in. He couldn’t remember them being said but he felt like they were aimed at him, and he didn’t like the bad feelings that bubbled up in his chest along with them. He didn’t have to listen to this. He didn’t have to go through this. He shoved back, hard, willing the voices to be silent and forcefully cutting off whatever connection her prying was beginning to forge. He didn’t particularly care if she poked around in his head, but he definitely didn’t like any of that.

“I’d really prefer you not do that,” he said out loud, keeping his voice neutral and polite. “Please.”

He could tell just from the feel of it that she could probably tear down any wall he put up. She was powerful, and he wasn’t even sure how much from her he was capable of blocking, so he went the diplomatic route and kept it a request. After a moment his vision began to fade back in, and he saw that she had let him go. She stepped aside and the man who’d first spoken stepped forward to offer a hand and help him up. He stepped shakily out of the chamber, not entirely trusting his legs yet.

“Natille and Haran are going to get you some clothing,” the woman told him. “We will speak again shortly.”

She didn’t sound angry that he’d cut her off, she didn’t sound anything. She was unreadable to him as she turned to the aqua-haired woman and spoke again, both of them occasionally looking back at him again. Finally the tall woman stepped away, leaving him with Natille and Haran. He looked back and forth between his two escorts, finding them both armed with weapons drawn. They didn’t try to tie him up or bind him at all, but he got the distinct impression he wasn’t on completely friendly terms with them.

Haran motioned for him to follow and he did, out of the big lab room and down a hall, down a set of stairs to a quiet hallway. They went down to the end, where Natille opened a door and they stepped inside. It was basic quarters, a bed built into one wall and a desk into the other, and a door at the far end that opened into what looked from here to be a bathroom. It was empty and unused, and he moved over to sit on the edge of the bed while he looked around and waited.

Natille had some kind of comm unit she took out of her pocket, making a call and speaking quickly. After she finished she put it away and and came over to him, pulling the desk chair over so she could sit in front of him.

“Natille,” she said clearly, touching her own chest before reaching over to touch Haran’s arm. “Haran.”

Then she reached forward and lightly touched his shoulder.

“Lansar.”

“Lansar?” He asked, pointing to himself with both index fingers. Was that his name? It seemed like that was what she was saying, and she nodded when he repeated it. The name sounded kind of familiar, not the kind of familiar that he thought a name should feel, but nothing felt that kind of familiar right now.

“Natille, Haran,” he repeated their names, gesturing to each of them to show he understood. Then he stood up, holding his hand up at the other woman’s approximate height, before running his fingers down his face to indicate her trailing red marks. “Hm?”

Natille raised her eyebrows questioningly, but then seemed to understand.

“Honerva,” she said, pointing back the way they’d come.

Honerva. He knew it was a name because he felt like he’d heard it before.

Somebody knocked at the door and Haran opened it, returning with a stack of items. He handed Lansar a large towel with some small bottles on top and then urged him into the bathroom, setting some fresh clothes on the sink and turning on the shower for him before leaving him to his own devices.

Lansar was suddenly acutely aware of how dirty he felt, like he hadn’t really been clean in days. His head felt oddly empty and his body strangely light, like anything with both mental and physical weight had recently been stripped away. He peeled the remains of the strange uniform away and stepped into the shower, the hot spray sending pleasant tingles running down his back.

The first thing he did was carefully peel away the bandages on his arm and face. They were now wet and he assumed whatever was under them needed to be cleaned, but when the gauze fell away he found nothing but smooth skin. Something had definitely been there, there was blood on the inside of the bandages, but at some point it had healed away.

That was curious. Also important, Lansar knew that much even if he didn’t know why. He tucked the little fact away, and started scrubbing away what felt like a week’s worth of sweat and exertion.

While he did, he thought. Perhaps the strangest thing about having his memory gone was that he didn’t even know himself, nothing about his hopes or fears or strengths or weaknesses. These were things he felt he had to figure out first, before he could figure out how to deal with the rest of the people here.

He wasn’t a fearful person, he decided that much. Nervous maybe, he was definitely uncomfortable in these unfamiliar surroundings, but he had been able to keep from showing any of that while back in the lab and in the tube. Not a terribly stoic person either, he’d had no instinctual need to keep his expressions from changing while he interacted. His speech was fairly casual, and he hadn’t exactly been meek upon waking.

Lansar supposed he was going to have to wing the next few hours and see what happened. He felt like he was a fairly confident person, or at least that he had it in him to be under the right circumstances. Hopefully things would work out that way.

He finished in the shower and dressed, a light blue tunic with white trousers and blue boots. When he was done he finally did what he had been putting off since he’d stepped into the bathroom, and moved to look in the mirror.

The face that looked back at him was completely alien to him. Lansar had thought that his own reflection would at least be familiar, but the boy looking back at him was a stranger. His skin was a deep tan color and his hair was mostly brown, run through with thin streaks of a sort of dusty lavender. His eyes, when he leaned in a little closer to look, were several shades of blue and had the same iridescent sheen as the others he’d met so far, making them reflect with an almost pinkish color.

He had marks on his face as well, half-moons under his eyes in a similar red to Honerva’s. His had a slight edge to them, a faint curve back that made the bottom edges look hooked, but other than that they were the same. There was really only one major difference he could see between his reflection and everyone he’d seen so far.

“My ears are hideous,” he muttered to himself, turning his head left and right to get a better look at them. There were no elegant points there, they were just small and rounded. They worked just fine, they just weren’t necessarily what he had expected to see.

Lansar turned away from the mirror and prepared to rejoin Natille and Haran, briefly going over what he knew. The group he was with were his kind but probably not his people, they wouldn’t draw weapons on him if that were the case. He was at least partly something else, it could be seen in the shape of his ears and the patterns in his hair. Honerva was the leader of this group, and while she hadn’t been hostile—yet—she hadn’t shown any fondness for him either. And nobody spoke his language except her.

He sighed and rested a hand on his hip, feeling an uncomfortable absence there. He felt like there should be a weapon there, the hilt of a sword to rest his hand on. His clothing should be heavier, more protective. Lansar was beginning to think he was a soldier of some kind, maybe he was a prisoner of war. Except prisoners of war didn’t get hot showers and clean clothes, or their captors trying to communicate with them.

He didn’t know what was going on, and there was only one way to find out.

He stepped out of the bathroom to find Natille still lounging in the desk chair and Haran seated on the bed. They had been talking but they stopped when he appeared, but now both of them kept their blades sheathed. Haran said something to him in a cheerful tone, then looked sheepish when Natille responded to him. Probably reminding him that Lansar didn’t understand.

There was a wait of a few minutes, but then they ushered him out of the room and back down the hall where they’d come. They bypassed the stairs and went further, all the way to the other end of the curving hallway where a slightly bigger door awaited. Natille announced them on an intercom, or so it sounded, and then let them into what might have once been an office but now looked more like a war room.

It had a big window at the far end where Honerva was looking out at the stars. There were two others standing with her, somber-faced and severe, in long robes with hoods that weren’t currently pulled up. Honerva turned to the new arrivals, speaking casually with Natille and Haran for a moment before looking to Lansar.

He glanced at his guides as they backed away from him and left the room, leaving him to fend for himself.

“Feeling any better?” Honerva’s tone was a little different, but not my much. Not enough to be readable at any rate as she moved to sit in the chair behind the sleek desk that separated them. Lansar gingerly lowered himself into one of the two chairs opposite.

“A little, yeah,” he admitted, watching the two robed guardians that stood back by the window. Something about them made his skin crawl.

“Good. I apologize for the uncomfortable circumstances, but we’re in the middle of a war. Your arrival was…unexpected.”

Lansar didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. She was looking at him like she was watching his face for clues about what he thought, but he didn’t think anything. It was just verification for his theory that he was a soldier, but that was all.

“The Altean people are going extinct,” Honerva said. The word ‘Altean’ clicked in Lansar’s brain, he knew he should know it. Most likely it was the name for these people with the pointed ears and face markings. “There are only a few of us left, and there are people out there who’d like to see us destroyed. You were recently rescued from them.”

Honerva touched something on her desk, and a hologram of a planet flickered into being. He recognized it, its swirling purples and greens under the technologically augmented rings that wrapped around it. It was a planet of white cities and green hills, shimmering seas and sparkling flower fields.

“Altea was destroyed ten thousand years ago, by the Galra,” Honerva told him. “But there is one who has been working since then to create a new Altea: Prince Lotor, heir to the Galra Empire. He did so not knowing that Altea’s original princess had been in cryosleep all this time. Recently she awakened and attempted to use him for her own gain, maneuvering him into the position of Emperor after aiding him in destroying the previous regime. She then attempted to wrestle control of the Alteans he had been protecting, and grew angry when she learned that she was no longer considered a ruler of her people.

“Emperor Lotor has spent the last several decaphoebs in the quintessence field, where the former princess Allura and her violent group left him to die,” Honerva banished the image of the planet. “While he was gone, she destroyed the Altean colony and all of its people when they wouldn’t bow down to her. Only those few who were with me at the time survived, you have seen them gathered here.

“Allura now fights with a Coalition of planets behind her, but currently takes advantage of a primitive planet called Earth. She leverages her technology in exchange for their compliance, and the humans who live there are a savage, cruel species who happily follow her.”

A new image flickered into view. Five people in colored armor, the one he assumed to be the Altean former princess in the forefront. Lansar knew the four people behind her, or at least he was aware that he had known them at some point. The red one had a stripe on one cheek, the green one was small, the yellow one looked nervous and the black one was somber. They looked similar to him, with their small, curved ears and more bland range of hair colors.

“You are a descendant of a refugee of the Altean war,” Honerva told him. “My own dear sister, Merla, whose will was twisted to make her follow the Altean royal family. It was they who started the war by betraying the Galra, destroying their home planet during a time of peace, and they manipulated others into following them. Merla was one of their victims. I see her in the colors you bear, they are not native to any modern surviving Alteans.”

“But I’m also human,” Lansar guessed, leaning back in his chair. Not a stretch to make from looking at the images.

“You were part of Allura’s personal unit,” Honerva answered. “Five people brought to her from Earth, and you among them. I assume you were born and raised there.”

Lansar’s gaze flicked back to the two Alteans guarding Honerva. He took in the large desk between them, and the fact that there was a table behind him blocking him from making a direct exit. Natille and Haran were probably also waiting right outside the door. He was allowed to be comfortable, but he was being watched.

“So doesn’t that make me your enemy?” He asked. He was being treated pretty decently for somebody who sounded like a threat.

“It makes you a victim.”

Honerva rose from her desk, walking around it as she spoke, her fingers trailing along the edge. “My druids and I have seen into your mind. Your talents have been exploited for the gain of humans while you yourself have been neglected, some might even say abused. You were never given a choice of loyalties, you were seduced and used by Allura toward her own goals, used to fill a pilot seat because they didn’t have time to find someone they felt was better.”

She came around to stand behind him, her hands resting lightly on his shoulders. If it was meant to make him uncomfortable or throw him off balance it didn’t, he was perfectly at ease with physical contact. He was nervous because of the circumstances, sure, but not particularly afraid of Honerva herself. So far. This Allura woman sounded a little bit sketchy, though.

“A quintant ago, you selflessly went into the quintessence field to rescue Lotor,” Honerva continued. “You brought him back to us, giving us a chance to lift the Galra oppression of remaining Alteans. You suffered from overexposure and barely survived, and now you sit before us with no memory of helping us or of your escape from those who manipulated you.

“Much of Altea’s culture died with it, as did its language with ten-thousand years of change. This is the language you speak with me now, no one else here understands your words but me.  We have known for some time that all living things carry memories of bygone times within them, locked in spiritual core of their being, and we know that overexposure affects the mind.”

Lansar frowned, trying to imagine this scenario. He believed her that he had gone into the quintessence field, he didn’t feel like he was the kind of person who was afraid to die, but it was strange to think of himself as capable of heroics. He didn’t remember any of the people she talked about, or escaping from anyone, or rescuing any emperor. His train of thought was interrupted as Honerva let go of his shoulders and stepped around him, reaching to tilt his chin upward and make him look at her.

“Quintessence heals the body,” she murmured. Lansar thought back to the bandage he’d pulled away from his arm, stained with blood but covering no visible wound. “Perhaps it heals the mind as well. You’re young but you’ve been through so much trauma, it’s possible these things were wiped away because they caused you pain. You’ve become a clean slate, and all you have to draw on are some of the memories of an ancient past.”

She let him go. Lansar looked to the two druids, gazing between their faces. What she said was true, neither of them could understand anything they were saying. He could tell by the unconscious frowns on their faces.

“So where do I go from here?” He asked, absently rubbing at the place where he’d removed the bandage. “Is everything gone forever? Does my memory just start here from now on?”

Well that was a horror in a league of its own. Starting from scratch in a place he didn’t know, with people he didn’t remember, in a war he couldn’t recall joining. Without even the benefit of knowing what the hell anybody around here was saying. He would learn the language, obviously, but that was going to take some doing.

“Memories come and go from the mind, but everything remains in the astral record,” Honerva answered. “Quintessence is life, it’s what animates us and links us all. All of our thoughts, all of our memories, they’re preserved within that collective force for all time. We will help you, if you let us. It won’t be complete, but my druids and I should be able to coax some of your memories back to you.”

“You want to put my brain back together?” Lansar asked skeptically. “Look, sorry if I sound a little jaded here, but that doesn’t sound like something I’d think anyone would do for an enemy, even one who saved your emperor for some reason.”

“We are a dying people, and you’re one of us,” Honerva said simply. “You are my kin, albeit distantly, and Altean power is genetic. Allura may be a disgrace to our kind, but she led skilled warriors and you were among them, and in recent days you have changed your allegiance to our side. This is where you belong, and you would make a strong fighter for our cause. You deserve to heal from the mistreatment you received, and I want to offer you that chance.”

She held out a hand to him, and Lansar regarded it critically. Honestly, he didn’t have much of a choice. If he didn’t take her offer he was stuck here with no past at all. At least if she could help him he might have something to work with, something to help point him in the direction he should go.

There was something else that nagged at him a little as she made her offer, something that touched him in a way her other words hadn’t.

_You’re one of us. This is where you belong._

Why did those words resonate so strongly? Had he really been so much of an outsider before that the ache lingered even after everything else was gone? He supposed there was only one way to find out. He sighed and nodded slightly, reaching out and taking her hand.

She helped him to his feet and guided him over to the side of the room, where a pair of more comfortable chairs sat next to a table filled with star maps and notes. She turned one to face the window and had him sit, looking out at the quiet peace of the stars. He felt rather than saw her druids approach, and then they each rested a hand on one of his shoulders.

Lansar made himself relax, made himself look at the stars. He began to feel a slight pressure building in his head but he didn’t fight it. He left everything open, everything exposed, and let them begin sifting through everything forgotten.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_10,000 Years Ago_** :

Alfor ran through the castle, taking old servants’ hallways that were rarely traversed and ducking through passages that had long since fallen out of use over the centuries. He reached the building’s center and had to step out into the public lobby of the main entrance in order to cross over into the eastern wing, flattening himself against the wall and darting along it to keep hidden behind the various tapestries and curtains.

When he reached the other side he peeked out from behind the regal statue of his great-great grandmother, his gaze sweeping the area to make sure it was empty of annoying diplomats or nagging representatives. It was still quiet for the moment, so he sprinted out of hiding and skidded down the passage toward the private royal quarters.

He took the curving private staircase two stairs at a time, bounding down the wide hallway at the top and throwing open the double doors at the end.

“MERL-ugh!” His exclamation was strangled off as he clotheslined himself on an unwound bolt of silk two servants were holding up for his wife’s inspection.

“Alfor!” Melenor rose from her seat, one hand over her mouth as the servants dropped the silk and ran to his side.

“Is he dead?” Merla asked, not even bothering to get up.

“I’m fine,” Alfor insisted, swatting at the two servants as he pushed himself up, rubbing at his neck where he’d caught himself on the silk. “Go, go! Dismissed! Out of here!”

They looked at each other but did as asked, hurrying out of the room. Alfor got unsteadily to his feet, dusting himself off, acutely aware that his wife and her best friend had suddenly burst out laughing at him.

“Alfor! What did you _do?_ ” Melenor asked, no longer trying to hide her laughter now that the servants were gone. “What happened to your hair?”

“This is not what it looks like,” Alfor grumbled, glaring up at the stray locks of hair that hung down in his face. The usual white was streaked with black and gray.

“It looks like you accidentally set your head on fire,” Merla observed.

“This…this is only slightly what it looks like,” Alfor corrected himself.

“Did you intentionally set your head on fire, then?” Melenor asked as she came over to him, smiling as she began wiping soot from his face with her handkerchief. “Love, you’re a mess.”

“I was working on my energy storage project,” Alfor answered, wrinkling his nose but letting her clean his face. “You know, to make teludavs more accessible without needing alchemy. But none of the crystals I was working with will resonate right, so I started looking through my mineral codex for something that might work better. And while I was looking I stopped to check a map and then I had a thought that got me so excited I knocked over the burner and my notebook went up in flames.”

He crossed his arms, looking petulant.

“So, technically, I set my lab on fire. My hair was just collateral damage. So was the cloak your mother gave me, by the way, I was using it as a smock. So we’re going to need to come up with a really good lie for why I’m not wearing it during the holidays.”

“Alfor!” Melenor groaned. “My mother made that cloak for you herself!”

“Yes,” Merla chimed in, smirking from where she stood behind Melenor. “Do you have any idea how long it took her to find just the right shade of chartreuse silk to let you know what she really thought of you?”

“This isn’t about the cloak!” Alfor defended, ducking away when Melenor tried to fix his hair. “I think I know where Oriande is!”

“I thought Oriande was just a story,” Melenor frowned, returning to the table where she and Merla had been having afternoon tea. She poured another cup and handed it to Alfor as he came to join them on the balcony. “Some sort of fairy tale shared in the alchemy halls.”

“Most people say it’s a story, but alchemists are all taught to regard it as true until proven otherwise,” Merla told her, returning to her own seat. “Our knowledge had to start somewhere, for now that source is said to be Oriande. Someday we may trace the teachings back far enough to disprove that, but not at this point in time.”

“I think it’s real,” Alfor insisted, taking the cup from his wife and setting it down in front of him. He took some napkins and began attempting to clean the soot from his own hair. “And now I think I have an idea of where it is. I think we should go take a look, Merla, imagine if I’m right! All of the secrets so many alchemists die before they’ve managed to learn, taken right from the original source! We could bring Honerva, it will be just like when we were younger!”

Merla was grinning at his enthusiasm, but her smile faded at the mention of her younger sister. She looked down at her teacup, brushing some stray strands of deep lavender hair back behind her ear.

“Honerva won’t join you,” she said unhappily. “She’s obsessed with her research into that rift, she thinks any attempt to pry her away from it is someone trying to sabotage her work. She’s already told me I’m no longer welcome in her _empire_.”

Merla said the word sarcastically, not hiding how she felt about Daibazaal or her brother-in-law. Alfor knew she wasn’t terribly fond of Zarkon, not since he’d chosen to keep the rift open in spite of how it was obviously driving his wife to ruin. Nor was she terribly fond of his staked claim over the Black Lion, which was a creation of Altea and technically only his on loan.

“She won’t recognize her family any more,” Merla continued. “Every attempt to help her ends with her screaming at me that I’m just angry she’s not in my shadow anymore, that she knows what she's doing and we're only holding her back. I tried talking to her...husband, but he's a useless sack of rocks."

Alfor wanted to defend his best friend, but in this he couldn’t. Zarkon had begun to make some very bad decisions in the last few years, and those decisions had mostly cut him off from everyone else. Alfor missed him, he missed Honerva. He missed his _friends_ , he hated knowing they were destroying themselves with something so strangely addicting but being unable to help.

“If Honerva won’t go, then I suppose it’s her loss,” Melenor spoke up, sipping from her own cup. “Personally, I think this whole Oriande thing is a little bit silly. But it’s obviously important to you, so maybe you should make the trip and see if there’s anything to find. Both of you. Who knows? Even if it isn’t real, maybe you’ll still find something out there worth learning.”

She leaned over and elbowed Alfor lightly.

“Besides, _your_ mother has been hinting even harder lately that she’d like to be a grandmother. I don’t think I need to tell you that you’d better get any long term trips out of your system now, before that happens.”

Alfor bit back a groan. He was too young for children, _they_ were too young for children. He still wanted to travel, take Melenor to see the sights all over the galaxy. Being a ruler wasn’t exactly the most wonderful of jobs, not only did he have a responsibility to make sure all of his people were safe and comfortable but having children was an actual part of his job description instead of just a pleasant perk of life.

He wanted them, definitely, just not yet. He may have settled down and stopped adventuring with his friends, but there were still plenty of adventures out there waiting for him and the love of his life.

“You’ll be coming?” Alfor prompted Merla. She looked over at Melenor, then back at him, and shrugged.

“Sure.”

“Good, pack your bags,” Melenor told Alfor, grinning as she refilled her own tea cup. “I love you more than anything, but it’s always a pleasure to have you out of my hair for a while.”

Alfor chuckled as he rose, leaning over to kiss the top of her head.

“I suppose you’ll spend the time I’m gone down with Orla?”

“Of course.”

Orla was Melenor’s younger sister. All of the children of Melenor’s Lordly house were warriors, as they had been for many generations, and Orla was a high ranking soldier in Altea’s guard. Melenor was not gifted with the seemingly magical manipulations of alchemy like her husband and best friend, her skills lay in combat and she loved to hone them. As the Queen she had a full schedule of supporting her husband’s causes, with him gone she would be able to spend the resulting quiet hours down in the training fields with a bow in her hands.

“Well, come on then, show me your map I guess,” Merla set aside her own napkin and rose, following him out of the royal quarters while Melenor called for some servants to help her clear up the tea service. “Let’s see where you think Oriande is.”

They started back the way Alfor had come, no longer avoiding the eyes of others now that he had cleaned himself up. Still, the hallways were mostly empty this time of day, and Merla waited until they were away from the private quarters to speak.

“Do you think this is wise?”

Alfor glanced over at her, at the pensive look on her face. Her eyes were blue, one of the few differences between her and her sister, and they held a deep well of concern.

“Looking for Oriande?” Alfor asked. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You’re very powerful already,” Merla pointed out. “So am I, so is Honerva. More powerful than most. It’s not bragging, it’s just a fact. And one of the first things we were taught was that power begs for corruption.”

Alfor was a very smart man, he didn’t have to ask to know what she was getting at. Honerva was already showing addictive behavior toward the rift, drawn to its power and refusing to step away from it. So far it mostly just made her angry all the time and unwilling to be reasonable, but it wasn’t unfair of Merla to fear that the sister she loved might be lost to some kind of corruption.

“When I said let’s go look for Oriande, was the power you could get from there the first thing you thought of?” Alfor asked.

Merla looked over at him, frowning. After a moment, she shook her head in the negative.

“Me neither,” Alfor smiled. “It’s the knowledge we’re looking for, Merla. We don’t study alchemy for power, we study it to learn the secrets of how to make the world a better place. You and I aren’t the kind of people who need to control everything. We don’t look for outside sources to give us strength, we look inside for that. As long as we remember _why_ we pursue power, for the benefit others rather than to elevate ourselves, I think we’ll be all right.

“I think the fact that you’re even worried you might handle it wrong is a good sign. So am I, and I think that’s a good fear for us to have. You stopped helping your sister with her research after I shared my concerns with you, if you were able to walk away from that you’ll be okay with anything we find in Oriande.”

“It’s easy to say that while we’re still here on Altea,” Merla reasoned as they crossed the still-empty castle lobby to get to the western wing. “But how can you really be sure that once you have that power in your hands you’ll really make the right decisions?”

Alfor paused as they reached the far door, opening it and holding it for Merla. He scratched the back of his head, frowning as he became serious.

“Honestly? There is no way to be sure,” he admitted. “I have faith in myself, that’s all I can tell you. I know who I am, and I know what I stand for. I believe that deep down, no matter what we’re doing, we always know what’s right even if we don’t want to acknowledge it because the right way is the hard way.

“All I can do is believe that when those choices come to me, I’ll always choose the welfare of others over myself.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current Day_** :

He walked with Honerva, a few steps behind her but with a confident posture and his head high. The hallway was quiet with nobody else here but the small group, something Natille and Haran were trying to fix with chatter.

“The ears are weird,” Haran murmured from behind him.

“Not really. All humans apparently look like that.”

“But they’re so small, how is he not deaf?”

“They’re deeper than ours,” Natille answered. “All three of them were like that. It makes up for the size.”

“Yeah, but can they really hear well?” Haran asked. “Or do they have terrible hearing and rely more on eyes?”

“I can hear you perfectly,” Lansar answered without turning back. “But no, we don’t hear as well as you. You can hear a higher pitch.”

They fell silent, and he didn’t have to turn around to know they were probably wincing at each other. He smirked a little, knowing he’d made them slightly uncomfortable.

His memory was still an incomplete slate, but some things had been pried from the depths. His language skills, his practical skills. He understood when people spoke now, he remembered that he knew how to pilot. He remembered how to fire a gun, he remembered some combat training. He vaguely remembered going into the quintessence field with a Galra woman—Acxa—and being treated for overexposure when he returned.

He remembered some other things as well…unpleasant things. Degrading words, aggressive tones.

Allura firing on him in his ship with very real, very deadly weapons when she didn’t feel his performance was good enough shortly after his arrival on Arus.

The tall human—Shiro—attacking him on the bridge of Allura’s castle ship before going after Lotor.

The dark-haired human, Keith, shoving him roughly aside upon his return from an extended absence.

Lansar felt a soft vibration in his arms and looked down at his wrists, feeling something he could only describe as a cool sensation washing through his mind. Those unpleasant memories faded back into oblivion, leaving him feeling light and confident again. The bracelets he wore had a small red light on them, which turned off once they were no longer active.

Suppressors, to help him through the trauma. They would activate whenever he had a memory that caused him distress, until he’d had time to recover and was ready to deal with the painful things he’d been through. It was a thoughtful gesture from Honerva, to help him heal.

And he needed those bad memories suppressed right now, because at the moment they were at war. The last Alteans that remained were fighting for their right to build a new home free from the tyrants who wanted to wipe them out, there was no time for him to rest. Honerva had fought long and hard to get to a place where the Galra could be controlled, and now they had Lotor to help on that front.

Now this Coaliton had to be dealt with. They were coalescing around a fake princess, who was about to help humans start spreading through the galaxy like a plague. Their only shot was to cut the head off the snake, and they needed every available soldier to help them do it. Lansar could worry about therapy later.

They entered the lab and he slowed down, letting Honerva get ahead of him as he looked around. This place was a little more familiar now, he had some impressions of being here before even if they weren’t solid.

“Have you found the two humans who escaped?” Honerva asked one of the Alteans who was working at the lab table.

“No,” she scowled. “We checked all three levels from top to bottom. They can’t get very far though, the rest of the outpost is on a no-fly order.”

“Keep looking,” Honerva ordered. “In the meantime, they won’t be able to send any messages anywhere or get off the base. That at least gives a small window to act in before Earth gets a warning.”

“What are we doing?” One of the Alteans who seemed to be dressed more like a pilot than an alchemist asked, pushing away from the window where he’d been leaning. “I thought we were waiting until the other four mechs were finished before we attacked Earth.”

“You’re not attacking Earth, you’re disabling its defenses,” Honerva responded. Lansar wandered over to the healing pod in the room, looking up at the man he now thought he recognized as Lotor. “To make it easier to attack later, at our leisure.”

“We only have one functioning mech,” Haran frowned. “And they beat one before. They have the Lions, and a warship that helped take out Sendak’s whole fleet on top of multiple zaiforge cannons.”

“They have one warship,” Lansar answered, looking away from the healing pod to the other Alteans in the room. A handful of survivors, fighting to exist, people who needed his help. “Just one, it’s called the Atlas. And I’m going to tell you how to bring it down.”


	22. Chapter 22

Current day:

“Are you sure this is all right with you?”

Shiro looked over at Keith, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was suited up and ready to go, preparing to leave soon for his recon trip with Hunk. Keith glanced up at him, blinking away whatever thoughts he had been lost in, and offered him a little smile.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Black’s not my color,” he said, looking down at the black armor he wore. “I guess I thought part of being the leader was the uniform, but this just doesn’t feel like me.”

Shiro nodded and took the breastplate Allura offered, snapping it on before holding his arms out to present himself.

“Okay then. How do I look?”

He wore a newly made set of black Paladin armor instead of his military uniform. Altean armor shifted to fit its owner but there was only so much it could do, and a new version had to be made to fit with his new prosthetic arm. Keith still currently wore the old black armor, but it was only because the red was locked up down in the Atlas’ Lion hangar and he didn’t feel like going down to switch it out. The set he wore right now was obsolete as of today and would be disposed of after he returned from his trip and reclaimed his own.

Keith said it was because he just didn’t like the black armor, and maybe that was true. But Shiro was fairly certain there was another reason for his switch back: when Lance returned and wore the blue again Keith wanted things to go back to the way they were.

“How do you like being the first to wear the upgraded armor?” Allura smiled at her creation. “There are some new polymers added in, they make the protective plates more supple but also able to absorb more kinetic energy. How does it feel?”

“Softer,” Shiro admitted. He stretched, twisting his body in various ways, reaching down to touch the floor. “Well, not softer. It bends easier. But you said it’s stronger?”

“Yes. I’d even venture to say that we wouldn’t have been quite so damaged after our Lions fell if we’d been wearing something like this,” Allura answered, lightly tapping his bracer. “I’ve made the boosters more powerful as well, and the under armor fabric insulates better. I suppose the last ten thousand years have brought some useful advancements in materials.”

The armor essentially looked the same, but Shiro could feel the improvements. It was lighter, more pliable and easier to move in. Which was saying something, since the original armor had been light years ahead of anything Earth had.

“The techs are working on the rest, ours should be ready by the time we return,” Allura looked over at Keith. “Would you and Hunk like to take two of the finished alternates? Just in case?”

She was referring to the four suits of armor that were laid out on the table of the meeting room. They were newly made, along with the new black armor,  extra sets for the times when Paladins took other, non-Voltron soldiers with them on missions. Shiro glanced over at the gray, purple, orange, and teal suits, grinning a little.

“Orange armor and a black bayard,” he pointed out. “You could be Halloween themed. Get into the October spirit.”

Keith rolled his eyes, but he was smiling a little. Shiro felt bad for him that so much was going on so close to his birthday, in the first year that they all thought they would be able to really celebrate with him. Krolia’s plans for a surprise party were slowly going up in smoke, and Hunk had put off buying things to make a cake as the date crept closer.

But they were getting steadily closer to finding out where Lance was, and they were all certain now he was alive. They were going to get him out, they were going to bring him and James home in one piece, and this kid was going to get a birthday celebration. Even if it was a little late.

“I’ll stick with this until I get back,” Keith pushed away from the wall and came over to flick the armor Shiro wore, testing it. “The new red armor will be ready by then. I don’t expect to be engaging with anybody, this is recon only.”

“I know, but just in case.”

“Speaking of recon, I need to go suit up myself and find Pidge,” Allura glanced up at the clock. “Krolia will be ready to go soon. We’re taking both Blue and Green, but we’ll keep our channels open in case we run into trouble. Are the crystals still holding a charge?”

She was referring to the two crystals that were kept down in the engine room. Allura’s father had been working on storing the energy of alchemic Alteans to allow others to make use of teludavs. In the last several months, in addition to adding a teludav itself to the Atlas, she’d begun to continue her father’s work and now had two such crystals to test.

“There should be enough residual energy stored in them for two wormholes,” Shiro answered. “So if we’re desperately needed, Coran should be able to get us to you.”

“I wish we had more time to test it, but we don’t,” Allura frowned. “So let’s hope we don’t need to use it yet.”

She gathered up the extra armor sets to take down to the armory in the Lion hangars, letting herself out and leaving them alone. Shiro looked down at Keith, who was still poking at his new armor like a curious child.

“Are you sure this is really okay?” He asked again. “I’m not trying to step into your place.”

“Shiro, it’s _fine_ ,” Keith insisted. “You’re the Black Paladin, with or without a Lion. You always will be. Earth is just a small piece of this universe, once we head out to war you’re not part of the Garrison anymore. You’re on the team, you should dress like it.”

He frowned, leaning back against the table they stood by and crossing his arms again.

“I know all this makes you nervous,” Keith admitted. “But I promise, I’m not doing this because I plan to do anything stupid or leave the team and make it necessary for you to take over. It’s just a little recon, I swear, I’m not going to ditch Hunk and Black and go running in to—“

“Keith,” Shiro interrupted him, reaching up to rest his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. I trust you, I trust your judgement. And I understand.”

He knew what Keith was feeling right now, the need to go out and do something instead of sitting around waiting. The drive to take things into his own hands because nobody was treating the situation as important enough. He was beginning to feel the same way, beginning to feel the need to stop talking and start doing again.

“This is important to you. _Lance_ is important to you. I know what it’s like to only realize what you have after it’s gone, but you still have a chance to get it back. So go, and do what you have to do. Just remember that you’re also important to all of us, and be careful.”

“I will,” Keith promised.

Shiro gave him a brief hug then a shove toward the door, knowing that Keith was going to do whatever he wanted to do once he was in that Lion and away from the Atlas. He would never do anything to endanger Hunk, Shiro knew, but it was in his nature to be tempted to action even when it was a bad idea. All he could really do was trust him to be careful and come back.

The Atlas was currently steady at commercial airline altitude, Shiro could see the blue of the ocean below once he left the meeting room and went down the hall to the ship’s viewing deck. His own reflection was visible in the glass, suited up and ready to go if necessary. This was his planet at stake, his friends in the Coalition, his family out fighting on the front lines; he would continue to command the ship, but he was not going to hide safely behind his stripes and fancy uniform like so many higher ranking officers.

He felt the faint vibration of the Lion hangar’s airlock opening. From below Shiro watched as they launched, powerful blurs of black, blue, and green, rising up toward the atmosphere together before parting ways and disappearing in opposite directions.

When they were gone Shiro took a few minutes to quietly watch the sun dance off the sea, a calming picture of glittering light. But he didn’t linger long, there were still things he had to do that didn’t involve running a ship.

Finding Coran was easy enough, he was cheerfully polishing the four healing pods in the infirmary. This was another reason Shiro would take this ship with him if he left, over the last six months it had become a newly remade Castle of Lions. Allura, Sam, and the Olkari had poured a lot of effort into this ship, it wasn’t just a warship but a flying citadel. The Atlas, not the Garrison, would soon be the home base and possibly home in general of the Voltron Paladins and their small Earth army.

The Garrison didn’t know that yet, but Shiro was almost looking forward to the look on Admiral Miller’s face when he found out.

“Need some help?” Shiro asked, interrupting Coran’s cheerful whistling and drawing his attention away from the glass he was cleaning.

“Well, you’re a bit overdressed, but healing pods can never be too clean!” Coran allowed. “And I find it a very relaxing activity, if I do say so myself.”

Shiro gathered up a cloth and some cleaner and opened one of the unattended pods, leaning in to begin scrubbing. He did so with the well-practiced motions of one who had been sentenced to janitorial duty as punishment for disobedience for most of his young adult life.

“I heard the memory chamber is finally functional,” Shiro said, glancing over at Coran. “Was that salvage we ordered from Sendak’s ship useful in getting it to work?”

“Yes, it’s a funny thing about a lot of that,” Coran answered. “Most of the Galra technology left on the planet was just that, Galra. But Sendak’s ship was altered with some old Altean tech. The two were put together pretty seamlessly, it made for some interesting advances neither would be able to make alone.”

“I guess working with Haggar has its perks,” Shiro grumbled. “What about the upload capsule?”

“Just about finished,” Coran assured him. “It should only be another week or two before we can try it out. Allura is going to test it by uploading her memories, and then we can see how well the memory chamber really works. For now the chamber only reflects a memory or two at a time from the people inside.”

“Allura said Romelle is down there with Ariella.”

“Yes. We thought it would be more comfortable if she could be somewhere of her own design. Didn’t want to keep her locked up in the brig or cuffed to an infirmary bed, after all. She’s secure down there.”

The memory chamber wasn’t a necessity, but it was something they’d all agreed should be installed. With Altea gone, the Paladins all thought that Allura and Coran deserved somewhere quiet to go to revisit their lost home. The upload capsule was a way for them to begin the somber but necessary task of preserving their knowledge in case anything happened to any of them, as Alfor had previously done in the Castle.

“Allura’s just about finished with the armor upgrades,” Shiro told Coran, pausing to look over his shoulder. He made sure there was nobody else in the infirmary and that the door was closed, giving them complete privacy. “The Lions are retrofitted with a few new safety features. She’s working on creating standard issue bayards that aren’t linked to the Lions. Pretty soon we’ll be ready to leave Earth long term to engage the Galra. How is the zaiforge cannon coming?”

“As well as can be expected,” Coran answered, also glancing at the door. “It’s not terribly easy repairing something that large without the Garrison noticing, but we’re managing. It should be ready to go online in another week or so.”

“It’s really not easy planning a coup, either,” Shiro frowned. “But Earth needs to be protected in the Atlas’ absence, and I just don’t trust the Garrison to be in charge of that kind of firepower. Not after all the awful calls they’ve made in the war so far.”

“Well, humans are new to the intergalactic struggle,” Coran reminded him. “We can’t really expect them to know how to handle a universe outside of Earth when they can barely get along with each other. I believe your plan seems solid, and so does the Coalition. Best not to worry about it too much, it’s too late to change course now. You missed a spot.”

Shiro looked down at the pod he was scrubbing, which was still pristine and untouched. But it wasn’t the first time he’d been told to scrub something that was already clean, so he just rolled his eyes and ran his cloth over it again. It didn't feel quite so much like a punishment if he did it voluntarily.

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Years Ago_** :

“No, Claire, I can’t make it into town tonight. Did you not notice this afternoon that I’m still lugging around two hundred pounds of solid moron?”

Adam Wolfe was in the dorm room alone for privacy, and had been for the last forty-five minutes. Shiro wouldn’t have given a damn under normal circumstances, but the current situation meant it affected him. A lot.

“I’m only one-eighty!” He yelled, twisting slightly to kick the door.

“Plus twenty pounds of ego!” Adam yelled back, kicking the door from his side in return. “Cram it!”

“If you don’t get off the phone so I can get off the floor soon I’m going to cram something straight up your a—“

The door suddenly opened, and Shiro’s threat was cut off when Adam sprayed him in the face twice with the spray bottle that was kept by the door for the small plant in the corner. The door slammed closed again before he could react, or at least as far closed as the chain of the handcuffs that connected them would allow.

“Okay, that’s it,” Shiro snarled, wiping at the water running down his face and neck with his free hand.

He leaned over and shoved the door open, finding Adam laying on the other side. He was on his back, his legs up against the wall and the phone to his ear. Shiro tackled him and grabbed the phone out of his hand, tossing it out the open dorm room window.

“Phone call over, I’m not sitting in the hallway while you whine to your stupid girlfriend anymore!”

Adam looked up at him, infuriatingly calm. His eyes turned upward to look at the window from his position, then came back to Shiro.

“That was your phone, but okay.”

“That was…why were you using my phone!?” Shiro exclaimed, lunging for the window and dragging Adam across the floor. “What the hell!”

“I know, right?” Adam asked, stumbling to his feet. Shiro could hear the smirk in his voice even though he kept his expression neutral. “Your service is terrible. But it was sitting there while you were reading the chem book earlier and not paying attention so I figured I’d take a look and see what kind of sad, sorry life you lived.”

“It was password protected!” Shiro spotted the phone down on the grass below the window.

He could hear Claire Andrews, Adam’s girlfriend, calling his name and wondering why he wasn’t answering. The dorm rooms were only on the first floor, but the windows didn’t open far enough to climb out. He briefly considered folding Adam in half and shoving him out to get it.

“Pfft, with your birthdate,” Adam snorted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar wallet, holding it up with two fingers. “And that’s right on your driver’s license.”

Shiro felt his eye twitch as he grabbed his wallet back.

He had thought this punishment would be simple. He wasn’t a problem student, the few brushes he’d had with authority before had always just ended in detention or having to write a boring essay on something he hated. Sure, he fought with Adam on the regular, but it was nothing more than the infuriating little snot deserved.

An argument here. A yelling match there. This was the first time they’d escalated to a physical altercation, but it had been a long time in coming. There was only room here for one person to have the highest ranking spot, and Shiro would be damned if he’d give it over to this hotheaded little twerp.

When they’d both been called into the counselor’s office, bruised and bleeding, Shiro had thought it was just a big joke when the handcuffs were slapped on them. When they were told they would now have to work together on everything, when they’d gone so far as to switch out roommates and put him in Adam’s room, Shiro had still thought this would be simple. Keep his mouth shut and get along until Iverson was lulled into a false sense of security and let them go, easy.

He had not foreseen how mind-numbingly angry he would be spending every second he was forced into close quarters with Adam.

Adam was loud. He was obnoxious. He swore constantly and preened like a peacock. People practically _swooned_ when he walked down the hall, something Shiro had never noticed before because they’d always avoided each other, and he flirted with anything on two legs. He remembered crazy details about everybody, even people he barely knew, wishing happy birthdays to other cadets and happy anniversaries to officers and teachers.

And he seemed to remember every. Single. Tiny. Thing. That drove Shiro insane.

“I’m going to smother you with your pillow tonight,” Shiro ground out, turning and stalking to the door. He dragged Adam out and down the hall, out into the cool autumn night to go search for his phone. “I’m going to smother you, and I’m going to bury your lifeless body in a vertical hole so the settlement depression isn’t viewable overhead by helicopter. I’m going to bury a dead animal on top of you so the cadaver dogs get confused and nobody ever knows what happened to you. I might plant a flower bush over you, so I have something nice to look at whenever I come to revisit the scene of my crime.”

“You know, you seem tense,” Adam said airily. “Your blood pressure must be really high.”

He let himself be dragged along, for which Shiro was thankful since he didn’t feel like getting in a tug-of-war. As much as he referred to Adam as just another pretty boy, he really was second only to Shiro in pretty much everything the Garrison threw at them. In fact, he was the reason Shiro could never relax, because if he did Adam would pass him and that simply couldn’t stand. If he didn’t want to walk, it would be hard to make him.

They had reached the spot where Shiro’s phone lay, but this was the moment Adam chose to bounce ahead of him, hooking it with his foot and kicking it up so he could grab it out of the air.

“Hold on a sec, I need to delete my search history,” he chirped, holding the phone out away from Shiro’s reach. “Or maybe I should leave it, you clearly need ideas.”

“I’m going to delete _you_ in a second,” Shiro returned, using the handcuffs to yank him back. He tried to grab the phone, but Adam stood on his toes and held it all the way up, just a few inches out of Shiro’s reach as he tried to take it back.

“Chill. Patience yields focus,” Adam advised.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, I read it in a fortune cookie. Isn’t that like, your peoples’ thing, Takashi? Fortunes and Confucius and shit?”

Shiro stopped reaching for the phone. Adam’s expression was all innocence, but they both knew he was perfectly aware of the differences between Japan and China. He also knew very well that he was the last person on this _planet_ who would be allowed to call him Takashi. Shiro took a deep breath, and then grabbed Adam in a headlock with his uncuffed arm.

Adam had been waiting for him to finally crack, knowing enough prodding would make him explode. He let himself be bent over and reached down to uppercut Shiro in the back of the knee, sending them both down to the ground.

The fight was bitter and no-holds-barred, made even more vicious by the fact that they were handcuffed together and there was no way for either to back off to calm down. At one point Adam kneed him in the solar plexus, at another he managed to punch Adam between the shoulder blades while he was down. There was enough creative twisting to put a choreographed action move to shame, fueled by the slow-burning vitriol they’d both been building up over the years.

It only ended when they were too exhausted to continue. They both lay face-down in the grass, panting for breath and groaning in pain.

“Did you fucking bite me?” Adam asked plaintively, lifting his head to look at his bruised arm. “You fucking _bit_ me.”

“I hope you get staph,” Shiro muttered into the grass.

Adam’s face fell back down into the ground with a soft ‘thunk.’ They continued to recover in silence for a few minutes.

“This isn’t working,” Adam murmured into the dirt when he’d finally caught his breath. He lifted his head again. “We only have one option if we want to get these cuffs off and go our separate ways.”

“Lay you face-down on the train tracks and see what’s left of you after one goes by and breaks the chain?” Shiro suggested, lifting his head tiredly. “Cut off your hand at the wrist?”

“Okay, I’m going to need you to stop being a psychopath for like, thirty seconds,” Adam requested. “Forty-five, tops. We’re going to have to figure out how to beat best time on that obstacle course and make them set us free. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but some of your threats are weirdly specific and I think you might need therapy.”

“Only where you’re concerned. Rage makes me creative.”

Shiro hated to say it, but Adam was right. He didn’t think he could handle this much longer, they’d only been attached for a day and a half and they were already at each others’ throats. If anything, they were even farther from working together than they’d ever been before the punishment.

Adam pushed himself up to his knees, running his free hand through his hair to try and dislodge the grass and leaves.

“Look, we both know they want us to beg,” he said reasonably. “That’s why they set the bar so high. Iverson wants us to come crawling on hands and knees and promise we’ll be perfect little angels if he’ll just let us go, then he’ll make us suffer a few extra days before he decides to cut us loose. Nobody thinks we can beat that obstacle course tied together, and even if they did they wouldn’t think we could beat the record time. We need to temporarily pretend you don’t disgust me and focus more on how spiteful I feel of authority right now.”

Shiro sighed and pushed himself up a bit, shaking the dirt out of his hair. He looked toward the Garrison dorm, narrowing his eyes slightly. Again, Adam was right. This was a power play, officers against cadets.

“I can _not_ be stuck with you until he gets around to giving in,” he agreed. “Your music sucks and I don’t think you’ve shut up since this started.”

“And I think your cologne is terrible,” Adam added. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with how much I hate you, it’s just constructive criticism. You’re going with citrus, but I really think you’re more of an aromatics man.”

Shiro got to his feet and hauled Adam up with him. He retrieved his phone and stalked across the quad toward the track and sports courts, skirting them to go to the obstacle course beyond. Adam fell into step beside him, just as determined to shove the counselor’s punishment back in everyone’s faces. They passed a few other cadets on the path, but everyone was smart enough to notice their expressions and give them a wide berth.

 It was still early evening, not quite dark yet, but classes were over and so were extracurriculars. The obstacle course was empty, a long stretch of hell built from solid logs and wood that was hard enough to get through alone let alone as a pair. Shiro moved toward the middle and stopped there, looking back and forth over the obstacles thoughtfully. He didn’t have to guide Adam along with him, the other cadet was already following the same process.

“The low jumps are a simple enough strategy,” Shiro supposed. There were seven of those in total spaced throughout the course. “It’s a waste of lower body energy to jump them, we can vault a little easier with our cuffed hands.”

“The up and over bar will be tricky,” Adam pointed out. “You always do a roll, you can’t do that like this. You need to learn to do a kip.”

“The combination will also be a problem,” Shiro observed. “The hand over pipes and the first log walk alone are doable, but getting  from one up to the other with only one hand is going to be murder.”

“And then from the log walk to the high roll,” Adam sighed. “I think the wall will actually be the easiest out of everything.”

That took them to the middle of the course and they both stopped there, silently agreeing without saying so that it was best to consider the course in parts. They began to pace the length of the course in step, their movements becoming instinctively synced now that they had somewhere else to aim their aggression. They moved from the first low jump to the climbing wall and back, then began the route again.

“Up and over bar,” they both decided in unison, coming to the same conclusion about what would need to be practiced first.

The bar was eight feet high, it was maneuvered by doing a pull-up and then either rolling or doing a kip. Most students did a roll, throwing one arm over the bar and bringing up the opposite leg to go over. Shiro always did it this way, it was easiest for him to kick his leg up and get momentum, but there was no way he was going to manage that now. He couldn’t put his cuffed arm over to grip the bar because the handcuffs didn’t give him enough leeway, and he couldn’t use his free arm because then his opposite leg would be blocked from getting over by Adam.

“Can you even do a kip?” Adam asked, giving him a sideways glance as they stood under the bar.

“Of course,” Shiro snorted, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “I did it once back in my first year.”

“Are you sure?” Adam pressed, clearly not believing him. “Because if I go up over that bar and you don’t, we’re both going to be hanging half a foot off the ground like very sad Christmas ornaments.”

Shiro pursed his lips. “Maybe we should try on the lower bar first.”

“My arm is going to be broken before this week is over,” he heard Adam mutter to himself as they moved down the course to the lower bar. This one was only six feet high, so at least if they did try to go over and were stuck on either side they wouldn’t end up dangling.

They started with pull-ups, trying to work up a rhythm between the two of them so they could eventually go up and over the bar together. The problem was that while Shiro seemed to have more strength in his arms and a moderate speed, Adam always pulled himself up quickly.

“You need to slow down,” Shiro complained. “We’re trying to set a matching pace, it’s not a race.”

“I can’t help it, I rock climb,” Adam said defensively. “I’m used to vertical faces, I like to get up them fast.”

“Maybe if you didn’t exist entirely on caffeine and ate some real food you wouldn’t always feel like you have to do everything _fast_ ,” Shiro retorted. In only the short time they’d been together, Adam had already horrified him with the sheer amount of coffee and tea he drank. He wasn’t a big eater, he’d only finished half of any meal so far if that, but he’d had enough espresso today to kill an elephant.

Adam made a growling noise, but tried to slow down. Shiro, feeling nice at the moment, tried to speed up some. It took about an hour of repeated pull-ups before they were moving at a matching pace without accidentally kicking each other or inadvertently pulling the other’s arm out of form. At that point they both knew it was wise to move on to something that worked the legs for a while, so they wouldn’t strain themselves.

They mostly worked in silence. It was actually kind of nice, the early fall air was cool as night moved in and the darkness was quiet. It gave Shiro some peace, being able to work out and turn inward with his thoughts. He didn’t even notice until about three hours in that he was leading their maneuvers and Adam had at some point begun following without complaint.

He cast the other boy a sideways glance as they stepped up onto the log walk. It was their first time on it so far, it was four logs lined up, and a pretty simple exercise. Step up on one end, walk to the other. The tricky part of this one was that the four parallel logs were on a slant and weren’t completely steady, so not only did one have to climb up to the high edge and make their way to the lower, but they had to do so with the log under their feet shifting left and right slightly.

On all of the other obstacles, Shiro had verbally given his intentions before starting. He decided not to do that this time, instead walking forward and vaulting himself up into a crouch on the edge of the log where he balanced briefly before standing. Adam did it at the exact same time, rising along with him and moving carefully along the shifting log with one foot slowly in front of the other. It gave Shiro a jarring realization.

_He already knows my habits by heart. He doesn’t even have to pay attention now that he’s used to my pace._

It was that annoying habit Adam had  of seeing and remembering things, and Shiro found it mildly grating. It was no wonder every time he turned around Adam was only a heartbeat behind him in all the rankings, he knew Shiro right down to which foot he would put forward first on an obstacle they hadn’t even tried yet.

And no wonder Adam had already known they’d need to work on the high bar, the pain in the ass was over there studying his weaknesses and using the advantage to keep up.

Shiro had the urge to start switching things up, just to shake him and leave him not knowing what to expect. But he knew doing that would just be shooting himself in the foot and sabotaging what they were trying to do, right now they wanted to be able to read each others movements this easily. He would have to wait until later, until after they had rubbed Iverson’s face in their victory, then he could take a good, hard look at his routines and see what to change.

What was that Adam had said earlier? The fortune cookie thing? Patience yields focus. He just had to be patient with this idiot for a little while, let his irritating quirks roll off of him, and he would be able to focus on what he needed to do.

It was nearly midnight by the time they both gave up, and even then it was only because they were too exhausted to do much more. It was Friday night so curfew wasn’t in effect for upperclassmen, they were able to trudge back across the quad and into the dorms without having to sneak.

Shiro would have liked to grab a shower, but that obviously wasn’t happening while they were attached. They were unlocked for twenty minutes in the morning and twenty in the evening, enough time to shower and dress before they were back in hell. The next chance for that would be at around seven, but he wasn’t going to complain as much as he usually would. He was tired enough to pass out without missing the extra grooming too much for one night.

Adam let them into the room, locking it behind them. They made it as far as the two beds they’d been forced to push practically together before they both collapsed to sit on the floor, leaning back against the footboards.

“This is going to be hell,” Adam said after a moment.

“Just think of it as every day being leg day,” Shiro answered, closing his eyes for just a moment. “And arm day. And everything day.”

Adam made a small noise, maybe of annoyance or maybe of agreement. Shiro didn’t know, because he was already falling asleep right where he sat. He was unconscious before he could decide to move.

When he woke up again he’d cooled down enough from the workout that the room felt chilly. Except for part of his side, which was comfortably warm and suspiciously heavy. Shiro opened one eye further to glance over, both eyes snapping open a second later when he saw that he was still sitting on the floor.

Adam was still passed out, at some point having slid down to lean against him. His head was resting on Shiro’s shoulder, tilted back a bit so it was facing upward and supported by the footboard to keep it from falling. He looked perfectly comfortable with his odd position.

_He’s almost tolerable when he’s finally quiet,_ Shiro thought.

Adam was an attractive guy when his mouth wasn’t running, tanned skin and tawny hair that he never seemed to bother trying to tame but always fell just right anyway. He sometimes wore computer glasses in class but those were over on the desk right now, leaving an uninterrupted view of his handsome face. It really was no wonder some people fell all over themselves when he flirted, he was tall and lean and full of life and color, and he had a mischievous smile that had a way of turning his mouth up just a bit at the corners—

“Oh no,” Shiro whispered, wincing and forcing his gaze away from Adam and to the door across the room. “No, no, no. Don’t. Do not. Don’t.”

It didn’t last. After a moment his traitorous eyes slid back over to the sleeping face resting only a few inches from his. Shiro tried to ignore it, he tried to ignore how comfortably Adam’s body was slotted against his and the pleasant warmth that came from it. He’d done a very good job of ignoring those kinds of things ever since realizing when he was younger that he preferred men, and he generally didn’t let himself get into situations where he couldn’t help but notice them.

But he noticed Adam’s more alluring traits now. Well, he had sort of noticed it before, but the problem was that now he’d gone and done something as stupid as acknowledging it to himself.  And now that he had, it was difficult to pretend he didn’t notice. Shiro wasn’t one to swear, but there really was only one word to describe the absolute dread that hit him as he looked up at the dark dorm room ceiling.

“Fuck.”

* * * * * * * * * *

**_Current Day_** :

The soft chime that came over the intercom pulled Shiro from his thoughts, making him and Coran pause in their scrubbing to listen to the announcement that followed. The intercom system wasn’t used very often since most people stayed at their posts, so when it did go off it usually meant an officer who had duties in several places was being paged.

“ _Commander Shirogane to the bridge, please,_ ” Veronica’s voice sounded polite, but there was an edge to it that gave Shiro pause. Something had her upset, there was urgency in her tone. “ _Commander Shirogane and Coran, please come to the bridge._ ”

Shiro looked over at Coran and could tell that he heard it too. There was no joking or lighthearted banter from the older Altean, he set aside his cleaning cloth and followed Shiro out of the infirmary quickly and quietly. They both pasted pleasant smiles on their faces as they went, uncertain of what was wrong but not wanting to alarm anybody they passed in the halls.

It was too soon for any of the Paladins to have reached their destinations, he knew. All of them would still be in friendly space, so there was no reason to think news had come of any injuries or attacks.

When they reached the bridge and stepped inside all heads swiveled to look at them, uncertainty written on their faces.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, moving to his console. “What’s going on?”

“We just got a signal,” Veronica answered, sending the feed over to Shiro’s console. “It was sent directly to Earth but it’s weak, it’s either really, really far or the vessel it’s coming from is low on power.”

“Who is it from?” Shiro prompted. “Where is it from? Wait. Coran? Is this where I think it is?”

He moved aside so Coran could look at his screen, at the starmap that came up with the signal frequency. Coran glanced over and nodded.

“That’s Arus.”

“The frequency is the same as the Altean pods that were on the Castle of Lions,” Shiro observed. “And the one Keith came back on from the colony.”

“Possibly the same ones Haggar and those other Alteans might be using,” Coran understood what he was getting at. “Answer the hail.”

Veronica already had her suspicions, Shiro could see that. She worked quickly, establishing a connection and bringing up the comm’s video feed on the Atlas’ viewscreen. There was no mistaking the messy brown hair or MFE flight suit of the pod’s pilot.

“Lance!” Veronica exclaimed.

Shiro felt a mix of relief and happiness wash over him when he saw the familiar face. Lance’s eyelids fluttered slightly but he seemed mostly out of it. He was kind of pale and didn’t look toward the camera, like he had trouble focusing on anything.

“What’s wrong with him?” Veronica asked. “Lance? Come in! This is the Atlas!”

“There’s no telling what he’s been through,” Shiro said when Lance still didn’t respond. “We don’t know what state he’s in, but he looks like a healing pod wouldn’t hurt.”

“What’s he doing on Arus?” Coran asked in disbelief.

“It’s one of the closest friendly planets to where the Fire of Purification’s territory is,” Shiro answered. “It makes sense that he’d go there if he can’t travel far. Coran, how likely are those residual crystals to work?”

“Well, Alfor was working on them for some time without any success, but the changes Allura made to the process seem sound,” Coran reasoned. “If they don’t work then the teludav just won’t fire.”

“All right, then we’re about to perform a live test,” Shiro announced. “Prepare the crew to wormhole. Send word to Keith and Hunk to change course and head to Arus. If the crystals work we’ll get there a few hours before they do, but at least they’ll be on the way.”

Everyone scurried to obey, and Shiro turned back to the video feed still on the screen.

“Hang in there, Lance. We’ll be there soon.”


	23. Chapter 23

Lansar sat cross-legged in the pilot seat of Pod FP-184, one knee bouncing with unconstrained nervous energy and his arms crossed as he scowled down at nothing in particular. He was invisible to anyone communicating through the main channels, a prerecorded broadcast taking the place of any active communications. He had heard the response from the IGF-Atlas about five minutes ago, now all there was to do was wait for its arrival.

“So what kind of cannon does this thing have?” Haran’s face peered up at him from the secondary comm video, where he was waiting in his own pod with some others.

“The kind that shoots,” Lansar answered, not looking up.

“Yeah, but what kind of laserfire does it use?” Haran asked. “What kind of guns does it have? Besides the Lions, it has fighter planes, right? How many?”

“The kind that explodes things, the kind that shoot things down, yes, and a few.”

“You know, you really haven’t given us all that much information,” Natille complained from beside Haran. “You’re leaving us blind.”

“I gave you as much as I trust you with,” Lansar replied. “Follow the instructions I gave you and everything will be fine.”

“I’d rather just fire a hole in the side, plant some bombs on the inside, and make the whole thing go down,” Natille grumbled.

“And that’s why I don’t trust you.” Lansar finally looked up at the video feed. “No casualties. For starters, there are civilian contractors on that ship. Second, the perfect way to make sure humans will chase you to the ends of the universe is by killing a noncombatant. This is an in and out job, I don’t need us being followed six jumps across the galaxy because you don’t have any self control.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Natille said imperiously. “I might have to defend myself. If that’s the case, what happens, happens.”

Lansar was supposed to be leading this small expedition. He had planned it and he was executing it, and per Honerva he was supposed to be the one in charge. She was keeping tabs from a distance, as any ruler did, but this was his. He knew what he was doing and he knew the best way to go forward, and he did not like that Natille kept talking like she was out on a recreational trip and could do whatever she wanted.

“Okay, let me put it in a way you’ll understand,” Lansar looked directly at Natille, his voice hardening in a way he didn’t like to be. “If you cause an unnecessary casualty on my mission, I’ll kill you on sight and send your body back to the human ship in the hopes that justice will calm some of their blood lust. Is that clear enough for you?”

He flipped some switches, separating the single video feed into four and bringing up a view of all five Alteans currently joining him.

“All of you, was that clear?” He repeated. “We aren’t out here for fun and games. There are less than fifty of you left, in total, against an entire coalition of planets and what’s left of the Galra empire. We’re here to start leveling the playing field in the war, not to instigate a battle that _we can’t win_ right now _._ You have your guidelines: if you cross the princess or one of her Paladins, then you kill. Anyone else is off the table. If you put the rest of us in jeopardy by going trigger happy, I will purge you so I don’t have to worry about it happening again.”

Lansar slapped his console and turned off the communication. Crossing his arms again, he went back to bouncing his knee. He didn’t like being like that, it didn’t feel comfortable. It didn’t feel like him, it felt like he was playing at being someone else.

“Harshness is difficult, but necessary.” Lansar glanced up at the tertiary line, patched through to Honerva where she sat in the captain’s seat of the cruiser. Her two druids, Anya and Karlor, were with her, and Acxa was at the controls. None of her Altean followers were present. “Sometimes to keep order, we must be cruel. But you must be prepared to follow through with your promised punishments as well if you want to be respected. Are you?”

Lansar paused in bouncing his knee and looked up, shifting uncomfortably. The Alteans under Honerva were all fairly young, most of them eighteen or under, and he knew he couldn’t trust their inexperience. But he trusted her, she knew what she was doing. It boosted his confidence a little that she approved of the way he was handling things, that she understood war better than they did. That she understood things were kind of desperate and that desperate measures might need to be taken.

“Yes,” he answered, hating himself for it because it was the truth. “If one of them puts the rest of us, or the mission, in danger, they have to go. We’re too few to take risks right now.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought she looked pleased. Her druids were impassive, but Acxa looked distinctively unhappy with the whole line of conversation.

“You do know it’s not realistic to expect no deaths today,” Honerva continued. “Are you also prepared for that?”

“If someone dies, it’ll be on me,” Lansar answered, going back to bouncing his knee. “It’ll be my call and it’ll be me doing it. Their job is to do what I say, not what I do.”

Honerva smiled visibly at that.

“I do wish we could destroy the ship outright, but you’re right that this is not the time to instigate a full battle. Should you succeed you will weaken one of the Coalition’s strongest new defenses and buy us time to grow our own. Should you need to take lives during the course of your mission, I have every faith that you will dispatch your duty admirably.”

“Thank you, Empress,” Lansar answered with a polite bow of his head. She had faith in him, and that helped. He knew his abilities, he knew he could be a leader and a damn fine soldier. He was trained as well as any of the princess’ other Paladins and he knew that he, if given a chance, could give them all a run for their money.

“And should your men disobey you, then they will meet your prescribed punishment. It’s a sad thing that we must live this way, but we need skilled leaders and obedient soldiers more than we need unruly children.”

The alert on his console went off a few seconds before the blackness of space in front of him was lit with a shimmering blue. Space-time shuddered and a wormhole opened up about ten miles away, yielding to release the colossal mass of the Atlas. The ship was an absolute monster compared to the pod, and even the cloaked cruiser Honerva waited in over in the next system was dwarfed by its size.

“Your markings,” Honerva warned as Lansar moved to harness himself into his seat.

Lansar closed his eyes and concentrated, like the alchemists at the outpost had taught him. He willed the red at his cheekbones to fade into smooth, tan skin, made the strands of lavender bleed into bronzed brown hair. The only thing he couldn’t really fix were his eyes, he didn’t have any memory of his pre-Rift color to work from. All he could do was pick one of the several shades of blue they had and shift his irises to match, giving them a flat, human-like color.

“Better,” Honerva praised. “I look forward to your victorious return, Lansar. Vrepit sa.”

“Vrepit sa,” Lansar murmured, turning off the secondary and tertiary signals completely.

He settled back in the pilot seat, turning off the main signal broadcast before the Atlas could hail him. As it approached he purged the last remaining power in its core, letting the pod fall slowly into darkness as if its reserves had finally failed. He felt the air begin to warm immediately as life support went off, oxygen ceasing to circulate, and the pull of his harness as the gravity generation stopped. Pressure  within the pod slowly started to change, and Lansar began counting down the moments until he lost consciousness.

This was a dangerous game to play in space, people died quickly out here without life support and proper suits. The MFE flight suit he wore was fine for a pressurized fighter but not so much for this, he was walking a thin line. But he needed a sense of urgency, he wanted the pod brought in with no questions asked.

Lansar had some of his memory back, but he knew he would have trouble convincing these people he was still the same. He was afraid of them, for one, and he didn’t think he’d be able to keep that fear from coloring his reactions to them. He was risking being caught here and being trapped under their power again, that was going to make him act more careful than a friend would. There were going to be clues that something was wrong, but Lansar didn’t want them getting that impression until he was already on board.

He closed his eyes and waited, concentrating on keeping his breathing shallow and using as little air as possible. He was beginning to get lightheaded and a little bit dizzy when he felt the pod starting to move, and opened his eyes to see one of the MFEs hooking it from the top to drag it toward a hangar airlock. It was being cut close, he felt himself slip away as he started to black out.

It only lasted a few seconds. The outer airlock closed behind them and air was forced into the space as the inner door opened. The MFE had been hovering, it continued into the hangar and taxied into its place as some soldiers ran forward and worked to manually open the pod. There was a loud hiss as the seal broke and the pressure suddenly changed, and the canopy opened.

Lansar did not have to fake being too shaky to stand immediately. Two men climbed behind him and each hooked him under an arm and leg, lifting him out of the pilot seat and handing him down to two others waiting on the ground. They supported him as two women in white and red uniforms rushed up with a gurney, easing him onto it.

His breath was beginning to return and his vision started to clear. He was safely inside the Atlas, now it was time for the hard part.

He remained on the gurney without complaint. Standard protocol in this situation called for him to be looked over by a physician and cleared of any health dangers before anything else happened, and nothing was going to change that. Lansar watched the lights hanging high over the hangar, watched the high ceiling change to the lower one of the hallway leading to the infirmary. The closer lights flashed by quicker, a blinking brightness coupled with the chattering voices of the med techs that gave him an uncomfortable feeling. Someone was shining a light in his eyes, another was pressing on his chest and abdomen. Hands were touching him, people were speaking, the lights kept flashing by overhead—

_“He’s not breathing well, get a mask on him right now!”_

_Visceral pain blossoming into a tortuous agony, cracked ribs grinding against a broken clavicle._

_“The abdominal wound’s bleeding out, he pulled out the object before the EMT got there.”_

_Dark silhouettes against bright lights, rough touches sending new waves of pain through his body. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t protest. He could only lie on the thin, hard pad of the operating table while hands pinched and twisted his insides, his eyes stuck closed and his mouth tasting like blood._

_“Someone needs to let Commander Shirogane and Lieutenant McClain know he’s probably not going to make it. We did everything we could…it’s just a waiting game now, but they should prepare for the worst.”_

_Shallow breaths with no air getting through, the frightened certainty that he was going to suffocate. Something dripped into his arm from his IV, sending a warm feeling spreading through him, killing the pain. It pushed him under, promised relief, but he fought it with everything he had, terrified that if he slept he’d never wake up again—_

“His heart rate is rising,” a female voice said.

“Blood pressure’s going up,” the other woman answered. “His breathing is getting labored. Looks like a panic attack.”

It was hard to see what was going on from where he lay on his back, just the familiar dark silhouettes against that bright overhead light. Something was beeping, a high pitch sounding an alarm. Someone leaned over him and started talking but it was all a blur of noise. His chest hurt and he couldn’t breathe, he started feeling dizzy.

A faint vibration came from his wrists, his suppressors kicking in. For a brief moment Lansar’s mind went completely blank, he saw nothing and heard nothing, and then his body relaxed. As his vision faded back in he felt calm, the beeping sound started to slow and his fear started to recede.

He had known this might bring up very bad memories, that he might suffer while he was here, but he hadn’t expected that level of terror. He no longer knew what had scared him, it had been pushed back down under the surface, but whatever it was had happened here and it had been a nightmare.

Lansar reached up to gently push away the hands that were examining him, ignoring the protests of the medical technicians as he sat up on the gurney. He peeled away the small sensor that had been placed on his chest, making the annoying beeping of the heart monitor stop entirely, and pressed it into the nearest tech’s hand.

“I’m okay,” he managed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s over, I’m okay.”

“You really should lay down, Mr. McClain,” one of the women advised. “You’ve been gone for a week and you have a recent history of brain injury, we need to run you through a full lab to make sure you’re healthy.”

McClain. Humans had surnames, he’d forgotten. That must be the one given to him here.

“Can you do that without my permission?” Lansar asked.

“Well, no, but—”

“Then I’m not giving you permission.” Lansar held up both hands, physically pushing the techs back away from him. He didn’t want anybody getting too close. “Look, can I have some space here? You’re making me claustrophobic. Just…leave me alone. I need to go talk to the commander, he needs to know what happened while I was gone. I’ll come back down later if I need to.”

They were reluctant, but they couldn’t hold him here. They had to let him go, but as he stepped into the hallway and let the infirmary door close behind him he heard one of them calling up to the bridge to say he was on his way.

His time was short.

Lansar walked quickly down the hall, out into the MFE hangar and past a handful of mechanics. There were a few soldiers hanging around, all looking toward him with interest as he started to jog across the hangar to the elevator that would take him up to the bridge. Plenty of witnesses to think he was hurrying up to talk to the officers, but when he slipped into the elevator he hit the button to go down farther.

Down to the real treasure trove, the hangar the Paladins used.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Natille that information about the Atlas was on a need to know basis. But part of the reason for that was because his knowledge of it was still sketchy at best. He knew where certain things were and how to get to them, like the bridge, the engine room, and the hangars. He knew the Paladins flew special ships shaped like lions and had special weapons built on ancient Altean technology and alchemy. And he knew they were kept in a spot of their own that only the Paladins could access.

The rest of the ship was, to him, just a blank grid. He knew vaguely where hallways, stairs, and exits were, but not much else. He’d find his way as he went.

The elevator reached the lower floor and opened to let him out into a very short hallway. There was a door here with a lock pad that read fingerprints, and Lansar crossed his fingers as he rested one hand on it and let it scan. The door beeped softly and opened for him, which took his respect for the Paladins down a few notches. The smart thing would have been to remove his access permissions while he was gone.

The hangar lights came on automatically as he entered the cavernous space where only two Lions currently sat. He had to be wary, then, that at least two of Allura’s unit might be nearby. But the hangar itself was quiet, so Lansar headed to the door at the side that he knew opened into the armory.

He had intentionally come unarmed, knowing it might look odd if he had any kind of fancy weaponry on him. He had known he could arm himself here, and that was turning out to be only too easy.

There was a case with some blasters, and under that some blades. The black knives were all short with some kind of purple symbol on them and looked like they were of Galra make, which made any technology built into them useless to him. Still, he grabbed a small one and tucked it into his belt, figuring he could use it as it was. He took down a heavy blaster and hefted it, lining up the sight and doing a little spin to test around the room how it lined up with targets. As he did something on the other end of the armory caught his eye.

“Hello, and what are you?” Lansar asked, approaching a glass tube that held what looked like specialized armor.  It was white with red accents, and a black under armor. He looked down at the flight suit he was wearing, the same thing he’d left this planet in a week ago, and then back at the armor. “Time for a fancy upgrade.”

He found a bag where he could stow the flight suit and pulled the armor out of the case. When he finished changing he picked up the funny-shaped item that had been in with it, some kind of handheld device. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was, it didn’t really do anything.

Until he lowered his hand to his side, then a light on his armor flashed and it disappeared.

“Energy storage, nice,” he murmured. “Useless, but nice.”

Lansar shoved two pistols and a blaster into the bag, then went to the bigger guns. He found a shorter rifle, one he could handle easily in medium to close range, and grabbed the red helmet on his way out of the armory. When the bag was stowed by the air lock the headed back to the elevator, stopping at the Lion closest to the door. It was under a red particle barrier, unused and empty.

“You’re one gorgeous ride, I’ll give you that,” he said with an appreciative whistle, resting the rifle against his shoulder as he inspected the Lion from a distance. “I think I’ll take you for myself once you guys are ours. That’s a few steps ahead of where we are right now…but try to wait up for me until we get to that point, beautiful.”

He left the Lion hangar and headed back upstairs in the elevator, pulling out the ticker he’d had with him. A varga and a handful of doboshes had passed, he had about fifteen more doboshes before the next phase of the plan went into action. That wasn’t much time...the fact that he wasn't on the bridge yet had undoubtedly been noticed, and people would be looking for him.

Lansar stopped the elevator at the floor just above the MFE hangars, taking a trip down the hall to a set of stairs that took him down to the engine room. In emergency conditions this area would be on lockdown to specific personnel only, but it was open now. He stepped inside to find the engineer, he thought the man’s name might be Sam, and two of his workers there.

“Lance!” Sam’s face brightened when he looked up and saw him, but Lansar couldn’t bring up any sort of memories of the guy. He only knew his name and that he was related to one of the Paladins somehow. “You’re okay! Everybody’s been worried sick about you! Keith and Hunk are on a recon mission right now, and Allura went with Pidge to check out some top secret site…they’re probably going to rush back as soon as they find out you’re all right! What about James, is he okay?”

James. Lansar didn’t know who James was, but he guessed it would be one of the humans that Honerva was looking for at the outpost. Perhaps another member of the Atlas flight crew, that would explain the concern about warnings getting to Earth before they had a chance to attack.

He gave what he hoped looked like a genuine smile, even though the way Sam said his name made him want to cringe. The humanized version was so plain and inelegant.

“He’s fine,” Lansar lied. “They have him up in the infirmary. I have to go talk to Commander Shirogane, but I wanted to make a stop in here to check on something with you. This thing’s shields, are they good to go? We’re going to need them soon.”

“Don’t worry, she’s ready to take anything that’s thrown at her,” Sam assured him. Maybe it was Lansar’s imagination, but Sam cocked his head to the side slightly, looking at him a little closer. It was quick, thoughtful, but then it was gone. He led Lansar over to a console where he typed in some commands, bringing up an overview of the Atlas’ defenses. “We’re at full power, and everything’s ready to go.”

“How can you tell?” Lansar squinted at the screen. “I can’t tell what any of this even is.”

“Oh, this is the reading for our power level, this is the power level on the teludav, this is the information on the shields—”

“This one?” Lansar interrupted, leaning over to tap on the icon Sam had indicated. The screen changed to what he could already tell was the main command screen for the ship’s shields. “They turn them on and off up in the bridge, I know that. So what does this do, shut down bridge access?”

He started to turn the level down toward “off” but Sam stopped him, which told him this was exactly what it was.

“Oh, you don’t want to play with that, Lance,” he warned. “Once it shuts all the way off it needs a full restart before it will work, we generally don’t turn anything completely off down he—”

“Don’t do that.” Lansar reached down and grabbed Sam’s other wrist, pulling his hand away from where he was starting to type something on the secondary keyboard at his side. Nothing was coming up on the screen, which meant he was trying to fire off a warning to somebody. “Let’s keep this party small, no extra guests. You two might want to stop moving and put your hands up.”

He leveled the gun at the two engineers off to his left, who were trying to quietly make their way to the door. They did as they were told, and Lansar motioned for Sam to sit in the nearby chair and move back away from the console.

“Was it the eyes, or was it something I said?” He wondered out loud as he began shutting the ship’s defenses down completely. Everything had a kill switch down here, it had to so it could be turned off completely for maintenance and not accidentally accessed by the bridge.

“Lance, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you really don’t want to do that,” Sam warned. “Nearby space is enemy territory, Galra could come through here at any time.”

“No, I really, really do want to do that,” Lansar corrected. He turned off the shields, then disabled the ship’s cannon and guns. He also disabled the sensors for the outer hull.

“Just let me call Shiro,” Sam requested. “If something’s wrong, he can help.”

“Shiro,” Lansar repeated, snapping his fingers. “That’s how you knew, right? I called him Shirogane. Shiro’s kind of a stupid name though, sounds like something you call a pet. Well, the chat was fun, but I have to go. Stand up and turn around. Hands up.”

Sam sighed and rose, turning to walk over to join the other engineers. When he did Lansar lowered the gun and reached forward to press his right suppressor against the back of his neck. As Honerva had promised when she’d given them to him they had multiple defensive uses, and as soon as both small, metal dots made contact with Sam’s skin the shock shot through him and knocked him unconscious. Lansar readjusted the suppressor to be hidden back under his bracer and leveled his gun back at the two other workers.

“Hallway,” he ordered.

They scurried to obey. Lansar grabbed the back of Sam’s shirt with one hand and dragged him along, following them until they reached a supply closet a short way down the hall. He motioned for them to step inside and then threw Sam in with them, kicking the door shut.

He fired two shots each at the control panels for the closet and engine room doors, rendering them inoperable, then fished the small communicator he wore around his neck out from under his armor.

“Shields have been disarmed, outer sensors are down, weapon systems are offline. I have verification that four Paladins are not on the ship. Repeat, the princess and her unit are not on the Atlas, and I'll be luring the ship's captain to me shortly. That means non-lethal defenses only…we want to leave them confused when we’re gone, make them think we’re not willing to hurt anybody. I’m about to start the diversion, give me five doboshes before you board.”

_“Understood,”_ Haran’s voice came back to him.

Lansar tucked the communicator away and picked up the helmet he’d dropped on the hallway floor, settling it on and heading back up the stairs. He took a few deep breaths to prepare himself for what was about to become a very strenuous day, then went back to the elevator and headed up another floor.

He officially had no idea where the hell he was at this point, but it didn’t really matter. He started walking down the hall, firing shots at access panels to lock people in and out of any rooms he came across, and took some shots at the emergency panels in the ceiling that were designed to detect fires.  It wasn’t very long before alarms started blaring, at which point he started running.

Lansar passed some kind of officer’s lounge, skidded to a halt, backed up and stepped inside. He fired some shots at the floor at the feet of relaxing soldiers. People ran out of the room in a panic, more alarms were set off. There was an announcement going about an intruder, making it even better.

He proceeded as fast as he could, wreaking general carnage as he went. At one point he turned a corner to find armed soldiers blockading the way, opening fire without warning. Honestly it should have been the end of him—his own damn fault for not being more careful—but as he instinctively threw up an arm a shield flashed into existence in front of him to deflect the fire.

“Sweet,” Lansar smirked, using the shield to cover himself as he backed down this hallway until he got to another one to roll into. He came up to his knees and returned fire, warning shots first. He did not want to kill any innocent people if he could help it, but he wouldn’t hesitate to kill an attacking soldier.

His warning went unheeded. Lansar sighed and lined up a shot that would take out three of them at once.

“Atlas crew, cease fire! Stand down, that’s an order!”

The shocked voice came from behind him. It distracted him long enough for the soldiers in the hall to duck for cover, which was both a relief and a disappointment. Lansar rose and turned to face the man standing halfway down the hall.

He had an artificial arm Lansar found he recognized, a forearm that floated in the air next to him, powered by a small Altean crystal if he was right. So much for simply being the captain of a ship, Shirogane was wearing the black Paladin armor. Lansar guessed it was difficult for humans to set aside their active killing spree hobbies in favor of quieter jobs. He had a group of soldiers a few yards behind him in the hall, their weapons currently pointed at the floor but ready to go if necessary.

“Lance, put down the gun.” Shirogane was standing with both of his hands raised at chest level, speaking with what was probably intended to be authority. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I promise you we’ll figure it out and you’ll be okay. But first I need you to put the weapon away.”

There were three soldiers behind Shirogane, along with the five or so that were hiding around the intersection behind Lansar. It was unfortunate, but he knew he could take out all of them if necessary with only minor injury, if that. It was just a matter of getting the right shot off at the right time, something Lansar was very, very good at.

He didn’t want to, the point was still to have no casualties who weren’t already on the kill list. There was a cross hallway just a few feet ahead of him, he could get down it and get away without hurting anyone here, but he couldn’t do that. There was a Paladin here, and if possible he needed to kill this guy. Allura’s fighters needed to be taken down, he might not have another chance like this.

“Put the gun down, Lance,” Shirogane repeated.

“Make me,” Lansar answered.

He tossed the shield in his hand up a bit so he could grab it by the side, throwing it and sending it spinning down the hall toward Shirogane. While all eyes were on the shield he pulled his gun up and lined up his shot, firing off two that hit the other man in the heart. As he fell Lansar fired off two more shots, both of them hitting Shirogane’s chest dead center on his way down.

Lansar darted forward and rolled into the side hallway to avoid the hail of laserfire that came his way immediately after. He had to pause to take stock of his surroundings, try to make sure that he wasn’t heading for a dead end when he ran.

“Stop!” Shirogane’s voice came again, sounding strained and in pain. “I said hold your fire!”

“No quiznaking way,” Lansar whispered, leaning over to peek down the hall. Shirogane was getting up, a little shaky but otherwise alive. “No, come on, he should be _dead_.”

The guns from the Paladin armory were not toys. They were upgraded with Altean technology, they were some of the deadliest personal weapons in several galaxies. That was why they were locked away so securely, because they could cause damage to the Paladins themselves in the right hands. That breastplate Shirogane wore should have shattered like an eggshell on the first two shots, and the follow ups should have blown a hole in his chest.

This was not good. He was now faced with a decision: make an escape now, or put himself in danger to try and take out his target again. If he did the former, he would be letting one of the most experienced soldiers in Allura’s unit walk away. If he stayed he could probably take down the excess soldiers in the hall, but Shirogane would be difficult to kill at the same time. Very difficult, maybe even impossible.

It was a risk he had to take. The others had their orders, they would still be able to finish the job even if he died. Lansar leaned back against the wall and took a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes.

_No anger, no upset, nothing but purely malicious intent. He backed quickly away from the sudden fist that came flying at him, ducking down and bringing his gun up to try and dissuade another swing. The Black Paladin continued to come at him with unfettered aggression, the intention to hurt him—and hurt him badly—clear on his face. He didn’t want to fire his weapon on the ship’s bridge, that was potential suicide out in deep space, and Shirogane took advantage of that. He grabbed the gun out of his hands, spun it around and swung it, hitting him in the gut. The fist came flying again, making contact twice, and he felt his head slam back against the floor hard enough to make him see stars when he went down—_

Lansar gripped his gun, his hands starting to tremble as the suppressors kicked in. A moment later he was left with nothing but the impression of fear, fear of Shirogane and of what the man would do to him if Lansar let him get close. God only knew what he’d done to anyone else, he could not let him walk away from this fight.

“Victory or death,” Lansar whispered.

He rolled forward, throwing himself out into the hall and coming up on his knees. The gun came up, the sights moving to a dead center shot on Shirogane’s forehead. Lansar fired two shots, then began blindly firing at the soldiers behind him.

Shirogane’s hand, that stupid quiznaking prosthetic, flew up and blocked the shots. It took some damage but the tech and alchemical reinforcement in it remained sound, and the older man dropped down and rolled out of the way. The other soldiers did the same, falling back behind shields. They did absolutely nothing, Lansar continued to fire right through them, but it blocked him from making fatal shots.

_“All personnel, this is a code Omega-4,”_ Shirogane’s voice came over the hall’s loudspeakers as he accessed the ship with his comm unit. “ _Repeat, code Omega-4, this is not a drill. Active shooter, complete lockdown on floor six. Red Paladin, Lance McClain, armed and on offensive. Do not engage, I repeat, do not engage! Threat level ten, retreat to safety corridors and lock down.”_

“Everybody, retreat!” Shirogane called up and down the hall now, to the soldiers Lansar now had pinned down as he carefully maneuvered to switch up and keep shooting in both directions. “Get to the safety corridors! Do not let him get his sights on you unless you want to be dead, just go!”

Lansar kept firing, but a moment later there was only empty hallway to be seen. He was no longer being fired back at as the Atlas troops obeyed the retreat order, but he wasn’t so stupid as to believe he was safe. Flattening himself back against the wall, he readjusted his helmet and tightened his grip on his gun.

“You still with me, Shirogane?” He called. “Somehow you don’t strike me as the kind of guy to just walk away from a fight.”

“I’m still here.” God, he sounded so annoyingly calm about all of this. “I don’t know why we’re here in the first place, or what’s going on, but I’m here. You want to tell me what’s going on, Lance? Why you’re firing on your own side?”

“Just a friendly neighborhood gun fight,” Lansar answered. “They’re like bonfires, everybody should have one once in a while.”

He let out a breath and tightened his grip on his rifle, throwing himself out into the hallway and opening fire. Shirogane spotted him as soon as he appeared and came at him, his helmet now on to protect against further head shots. He had his own shield up, deflecting much of the laserfire.

Lansar backed up but kept firing. He refused to back down and run, trying to get at least one good hit on a weak spot before Shirogane reached him. If he could just get around that shield, or hit under the helmet’s protective screen…

Every shot was blocked. Shirogane reached him and caught hold of the gun, forcing it upward so every blast just harmlessly hit the ceiling. Lansar kept trying to fight him, but he got ahold of it with the prosthetic. The metal creaked and groaned as it bent under the strength of his mechanical fingers, the rifle rendered useless within seconds.

The gun was wrenched from his hands and Shirogane spun, catching him in the side with a kick that threw him to the side and against the wall. Lansar’s armor and helmet took the brunt of the impact, and he dropped down to duck when Shirogane tried to grab him.

Lansar landed a kick to Shirogane’s side, where the solid parts of the armor didn’t protect, but he was immediately struck with a hit in the gut. He felt his helmet ripped away, and then a blow from the prosthetic arm.

He flew back, sliding several yards down the hallway. His head hit the floor, bouncing in a way that made him dizzy for an instant, and he tasted blood on his tongue.

Lansar pushed himself up to his knees, sucking in air and trying to ignore the pain in his stomach from where he’d been initially hit. Shirogane didn’t come at him again, instead he raised both of his hands again and held them open to show he wasn’t holding a weapon.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he insisted. “Nobody here wants to hurt you. This isn’t what you want to do, Lance. Whatever Haggar is doing to you, let me help you. Please.”

It was a pretty hollow gesture, considering that the Altean arm _was_ Shirogane’s weapon. As long as it was active they weren’t on equal footing, it was that tech that made him so dangerous. Lansar knew it was too fast, too strong, and packed too much power for him to effectively get past it to really damage its owner.

Lansar tensed as Shirogane moved, this time reaching up to remove his own helmet. He dropped it on the ground and took a step forward, hands going back up to their positions. He felt his heart leap up into his throat as the other soldier came closer, and shot to his feet. He backed up quickly, moving to put distance between them, and ended up hitting the wall behind him. It tripped him up and he lost his balance, sliding down to the floor, trapped.

“Hey,” Shirogane came forward a little further, stopping only a few feet away with his hands still raised. “I mean it, I’m not going to hurt you. But I need you to stop coming at me and relax, okay?”

Lansar looked left and right down the hallway fork. He was now at the far end of the ship, the halls both went down a ways and then turned back in the other direction. He had no way of knowing if they continued or if they each ended in a room somewhere, and Shirogane was blocking him from going forward. The gun he’d brought with him was wrecked, and Shirogane _must_ have done something with his armor to make it tougher to get through.

Lansar glared up at him, knowing full well the look of innocence on Shirogane’s face was an act. That face kept flashing up briefly in his memory, cold and impassive as he threw punches intended to do very real damage. This man was absolutely dangerous, and Lansar would sooner throw himself off a cliff than trust him.

His silence seemed to only encourage Shirogane. He reached his prosthetic hand forward slowly, offering his hand to help Lansar up. Lansar looked at it, not wanting to touch it, knowing that even if it was different from the one that had struck him it was still the same man behind it.

But he couldn’t sit here on the floor forever. He needed to do something, he needed to get back into the fight. He needed to disable that arm, take away what made Shirogane so tough. There was a way to do it but he only had one shot, and he couldn’t waste his chance.

Lansar let out a breath, forcing himself to deflate slightly as if giving up. He reached up with his left hand to take the offered one, letting himself be pulled to is feet.

“Come on,” Shirogane said softly. “Let’s go to the infirmary. Whatever’s wrong, we can fix it.”

Lansar tilted his head to look at him close up. Shirogane was about four inches or so taller than him, but not impossibly large. Bigger, more defined muscle, definitely physically stronger. But, most importantly, he was also no longer wearing his helmet.

Lansar willed his camouflage away, letting the red bleed back into his facial marks and the lavender streak back through his hair. The flat eye color was replaced by his multifaceted blue. He could see in Shirogane’s face the exact tick he registered the change, the shock that colored it and gave one, blessed moment of pure distraction.

That was what Lansar was waiting for. He brought his right leg up in an outside crescent kick, catching Shirogane’s face but intentionally only grazing it. He used the momentum to carry him into a spin, jumping up so that he ended up facing away from his opponent and straddling the prosthetic arm as they both went down. Lansar pulled the black Galra knife from where it was tucked in the back of his belt, slamming it down into a crack in the arm’s surface and forcing open the cover for its power source.

He plunged his fingers in, digging through wiring until he felt the spark he knew was there. His fingers closed around the Altean crystal and he ripped it free, rolling away from Shirogane and up to his feet. He spun around and gripped the knife hilt in both hands, dropping down on his knees and plunging it downward toward the older man’s throat.

Shirogane was not that easy to take down. He threw up his good arm and his shield came up, blocking Lansar from making a killing blow. At the same time he scissored up one leg, catching him in the side of the head with a kick that sent him sprawling. The knife fell out of his hand and slid down the hallway, and both fighters lunged for it.

Even with only one arm, the Black Paladin was simply bigger and stronger. His close combat was better, his hand-to-hand skills more honed. He got to the knife first, grabbing it by the blade, and threw it down the hall out of reach. In the same motion he turned and dropped down, hooking Lansar’s legs with his arm while he wasn’t expecting it and slamming him to the floor.

_I need a weapon_ , Lansar realized. _I need something. Anything. He has the advantage in everything._

He pushed himself up and reached instinctively for his hip, not even realizing he was doing so until he felt something materialize in his fingers. Looking down, he found himself holding the strange device that had been down in storage with the armor. It glowed softly, and in a flash he found himself holding a short rifle similar to the one he’d initially been armed with.

“Oh, that is _definitely_ sweet,” he breathed, whipping around to take aim at Shirogane.

The man wasn’t stupid, Lansar had to give him that. He realized he was in trouble and threw up his shield, backing away. Lansar started firing and advanced, driving him backward until Shirogane was the one pinned at the end of the hall.

The only drawback was that he seemed to remember where the hallways went. He bolted to the right and disappeared down one and Lansar flattened himself against the wall to peek around the corner. Even as he did he heard the beeping of a lock pad being used to override the floor-wide lockdown, and Shirogane disappeared into one of the rooms.

Lansar paused at the fork to consider his options. He could try to follow, but it would likely only be a matter of a very short time before Shirogane was armed and a threat again. He decided it was best to give up for the time being and move on, try to find his way so he could rendezvous with the others when the time came.

He turned and jogged back the way he’d come, leaning down to scoop up his helmet as he went. He grabbed Shirogane’s arm from where it lay on the floor and the crystal that had been powering it, and shoved them both into different trash chutes as he passed. The chute itself would currently be locked in the emergency, but when everything was lifted it would open again and good luck to them in finding everything.

Lansar knew he had to move fast. Shirogane would obviously be aware that anyone who could access the Lion hangar could override a lockdown, and there was no way they’d be able to remove him from the system this fast. It was more of an attempt to slow him down than anything, and that had very effectively been done, so now he had to hurry.

Of course, now he was also lost.

He found an elevator that was definitely not the one he’d taken to this floor and punched in his override code. It opened and he picked a lower floor in the hopes he’d end up wandering back to the engine room and be able to find his way. But when the doors opened and he stepped out, he found himself in what he thought might be a recreational area.

“Great,” he muttered, slowing down some to limp down the hall. That damned Paladin had really done a number on him, and he was starting to feel it. “How big is this freaking ship?”

Up ahead he heard people coming and knew it meant trouble. The Omega-4 protocol meant it would be a squad of soldiers doing rounds, and he wasn’t ready to face off against multiple opponents again yet. He picked a random door and ducked inside, flattening himself against the inner wall and raising his gun to sweep the inside.

He stopped halfway. The room was…not a room.

“Lance?” The feminine voice was surprised, coming from a blond Altean woman standing in the middle of a clearing surrounded by trees.

She was with another, a younger Altean girl with long pink hair who was confined behind an invisible wall. Lansar could see the faint shimmer of it as he walked forward, a cage that was meant to not look like a cage. They were both looking at the gun in his hand and they both looked scared, and he didn’t blame them. He’d be scared too if humans had him locked up in the depths of a warship.

“Whoa, hey, it’s all right,” Lansar lowered the weapon and it flickered away, leaving him holding only the bayard. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I work for Honerva. How did you get here?”

The pink-haired girl’s eyes widened, hope flooding her face.

“Watch out for Romelle!” She shouted, pressing her hands against the barrier that held her captive. “They have her brainwashed!”

Lansar looked at the blond—Romelle—whose violet eyes dropped down to the bayard in his hands. She started backing away, raising her own hands as if to defend herself. He looked at the bayard, then flicked it away to leave his hands empty. After all, up until recently he had basically been in the same boat as this poor girl. She needed help just as much as he had.

“It’s all right,” he assured them both. “I don’t think Romelle’s going to try anything with me, are you Romelle?”

“I…” She looked back and forth between him and the other girl. Lansar stepped over to the invisible cage and looked at the small access panel on it. He’d never seen this particular gadget before, but he tried his override code in it anyway. If it was hooked into the main system…

A small green light briefly flashed, and the shimmer of the wall disappeared. In fact, everything disappeared. Lansar looked around as he found himself standing in an empty room with smooth metal walls.

“Huh. Memory chamber,” he said in surprise. It had likely been echoing one of the girls’ memories, its illusions canceled by the change in their attention. “Nice. Well, not if you’re locked in it, I guess. What’s your name?”

The girl gingerly tested the space, stepping over the line where the wall had been a moment ago. Her face lit up with relief when she was able to go further.

“Ariella,” she said shyly, looking over at the blond. “And this is Romelle. You said you work for Honerva, is she here?”

“No, just me and a recon team. The name’s Lansar,” he answered, turning toward Romelle as well. “Ariella and I are going to walk out of here. I don’t want to threaten you Romelle, you don't need that right now. So I’m going to ask you nicely to come along quietly.”

“Come on Romelle,” Ariella held out a hand, looking like she desperately wanted Romelle to accept. “Please? You don’t belong here with these people.”

Romelle was sputtering a bit, looking back and forth between them as if trying to process what was going on when Lansar felt a faint vibration go through the Atlas. It was something he wouldn’t have felt if he was up a few floors, he knew.

Something big was moving. Or, more likely, something big had arrived.

“I think a Lion just showed up,” he sighed, running a hand tiredly through his hair. This was not what he needed right now.


	24. Chapter 24

“Hailing the IGF-Atlas, this is Keith in the Black Lion.”

Keith set Black’s course toward the warship, which was beginning to come up in his view in the distance. It was a few miles out from the orbit of Arus, a pretty blue planet floating peacefully in a region still blessedly free of Galra occupation. There was a full minute with no answer.

“Uh, Atlas?” He tried again, glancing over at Hunk, who stood beside him looking mildly ill and slightly bruised. Sometimes Keith forgot that the other Paladins had never been in Black when he’d used the wings, and in his eagerness to find out what was going on with Lance Keith had also forgotten that Hunk did not have a safety harness. “This is Keith and Hunk in the Black Lion. Please respond.”

There was another short pause, but this time an answer came.

“Copy that, Black Lion,” it was Coran’s voice instead of Veronica, which was strange since she usually handled communications. “We’re having a bit of a problem here.”

“What kind of problem?” Hunk asked, leaning forward to scan the viewscreen for signs of Galra attackers. The space around the ship seemed quiet enough.

“Did you find Lance?” Keith asked impatiently. “Is he on board? Is he okay?”

“Well, that’s sort of the problem,” Coran answered reluctantly. “The Atlas is under an Omega-4 protocol at the moment.”

“Active shooter?” Hunk looked over at Keith. “Galra on board?”

“Ah, no. Lance.”

“What are you talking about?” Keith demanded. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Hang on,” Coran requested. “I’m patching in Shiro.”

“Shiro!” Keith nudged up the accelerator, speeding up Black’s approach of the Atlas. “Coran says there’s an Omega-4 and that Lance is the shooter. What the hell is going on down there?”

“What’s going on is that you need to back off your approach,” Shiro’s voice came over the comm. “Do not dock with the Atlas, Keith. After we picked up Lance he was sent to the infirmary, he disappeared from there a little bit later. Next thing we know, the shields are inactive and our weapons are all down, and I’m getting multiple reports of gunfire.”

“Lance isn’t going to just randomly shoot up the Atlas,” Keith answered. He didn’t comment on the request to not dock, continuing his approach. “There has to be somebody else there.”

“I saw him,” Shiro insisted. “I fought him. He tried to _kill_ me, Keith. Four shots dead center in the chest with one of the prototype rifles, if I hadn’t been wearing Allura’s new armor I’d be a corpse right now. And I was dumb enough to still underestimate him, he managed to deactivate my prosthetic and almost buried a Marmora knife in my throat. Plus, he’s gotten his hands on the red armor and his bayard.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Keith repeated.

“No, what doesn’t make any sense is that he’s Altean,” Shiro answered. “Fully Altean. Face marks, hair color, weird eyes—no offense, Coran. It’s him, don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely him. This isn’t a case of another clone, everything he threw at me screamed Lance. But he looked at me like he didn’t know me, like he was _scared_ of me and really believed he was fighting for his life. He called me Shirogane.”

“Okay, this is bad,” Hunk frowned. “Like, really bad. I love Lance to death, but the guy has some serious issues with pent up emotions and he hasn’t taken it out on anything in months. It sounds like…I don’t know. Maybe Haggar found a way to tap into it or something.”

“He was changing when he was taken,” Keith answered, sending a signal to the Atlas’ Lion hangar to open the airlocks for Black. “But that was because he was constantly being exposed to quintessence through piloting Red. If he’s showing physical signs now, maybe he was exposed while he was gone and it’s still messing with his head.”

“All of that in a week?” Hunk asked. “Dude, you’ve been dipping into that stuff for months and you’re only just now starting to show visible changes. How much was he exposed to if Shiro thinks he even looks Altean?”

“Too much,” Shiro answered. “Look, I’m stuck on the sixth floor. I’m armored but not armed, literally and figuratively. I don’t know where he is, and I’m pretty much out of the game at this point.”

“What about the other soldiers on the ship?” Keith asked as he landed Black, moving the Lion into his berth. “Have they been ordered to stand down?”

“They’ve been ordered to run for their lives,” Shiro answered. “Nobody is to engage. Lance might be a goofball, but none of them would stand a chance against him with a gun in his hand. The whole sixth floor has been ordered to the safety corridors.”

“Coran, Shiro says Lance is armored. I never bothered to turn off the sonar beacon in the red armor after our recon before the Last Stand,” Keith put on his helmet, switching to the mic there. “Lance’s bayard uses that signal for mapping. Can you use it to pick up his location?”

“Just a tick. Yes…looks like he’s gotten past the lockdown and is on the recreation level. Well, he may not know us but he still knows some of our patterns and defenses well enough.”

“Put out a Threat Level Ten alert on all levels,” Keith ordered. “I want everyone who isn’t necessary to the running of the ship to be in the safety corridors, not just the sixth floor.”

“Oh no,” Shiro groaned. “You’re here, aren’t you? Keith, seriously, this is _not_ a fight you want to get into. Between the two of you, you’ll wreck what’s left of the ship.”

“If you think all he’s planning is a little bit of shooting and that something worse isn’t coming our way, then you’ve never paid attention to any of his ideas,” Keith said, ignoring Shiro’s warning as he and Hunk disembarked. “Lance likes “the big kaboom,” remember? He needs to be neutralized before whatever else he’s planning happens. Any casualties so far?”

“None reported,” Coran answered. “And no injuries, aside from Shiro.”

“None? None as in zero?” Hunk frowned. “Doesn’t seem right. How does somebody who can use a gun like Lance not manage to actually hit anybody?”

“Because it’s Lance, and Lance doesn’t hurt or kill innocent people,” Keith said firmly. “Hunk, head to the engine room and see if you can get the ship’s defenses back online. Coran, put out that alert. Shiro, just stay where you are, you’ve already risked your neck enough for today. And somebody get a call out to Allura and Pidge that we need them here as soon as possible.”

Keith went with Hunk as far as the elevator stop on the floor of the engine room. Once Hunk stepped out and he was headed further into the base of the Atlas, Keith glared at the slowly changing numbers with clenched teeth. He could hear Coran giving the order for all non-essential personnel to get to the safety corridors, which was a necessity. If Lance ran and he had to follow, there was no telling where this fight could go.

How had this happened? How had they gotten here? And what in the universe could have been done to Lance that he would do something like this?

Keith had no doubt that Haggar was behind it. She’d done nothing but make the people he loved suffer since the day Shiro had been taken on Kerberos, and now she was using Lance. Not just against him, either, but against them all. This wasn’t like the Kuron project, with an uploaded kill virus and plenty of Shiro copies to fall back on. She’d sent Lance in here personally, and it sounded like he was doing a bang up job.

Keith trusted Shiro’s assessment that this was really Lance, that it wasn’t some copy. Haggar wouldn’t use the same trick twice, she’d raise the stakes on each successive try. Maybe Acxa hadn’t known what she was getting when she’d chosen who to take, but now it was clear they’d hit a gold mine as far as damage went.

He wanted to be surprised, he really did, but he wasn’t. Keith had always seen Lance’s potential, he’d always known he was capable of a lot. Everybody else only seemed to see his soft personality, they let his smile and jokes make them blind to what was underneath.

The trauma. The painfully earned combat skills. The war wounds and the nightmares, the scars and the bad memories. Constant hospital visits, weeks of physical therapy, months of psychologist visits. The hardened soldier was there, just like the rest of them. But it was easy to forget that Lance was the pilot of the Red Lion.

Fast. Agile. Temperamental. Unstable. Under the right circumstances, dangerous.

Because he could also be beautiful and calm, selfless and protective. Lance was not an aggressor, he was a defender. Keith knew that better than anyone because it was a trait they both shared, one of many that put them so in sync even though on the surface they appeared to be opposites. And no matter what Haggar did, no matter what she twisted, there was no way she could change who Lance was at his core.

That was the only reason Lance would attack them. Because Lance believed he was defending something, something they were a danger to.

Keith slammed the button to halt the elevator just as it reached the right floor, stopping the doors from opening.

“Coran, Shiro, are you still with me?” A chorus of yes. “You said Lance is on the recreational floor. Where’s Ariella being held?”

There was a pause. “In the memory chamber, on the recreational floor. She’s with Romelle.”

“Do you think she’s his target?” Shiro asked. “Maybe Haggar thinks she’ll turn on her?”

“No. I think Alteans will protect other Alteans,” Keith answered. “He’s here to do something he thinks will benefit the others that Haggar has under her thumb, but Ariella is a fluke. Lance doesn’t know who she is, he was alreadyoff the team when we found her in the mech, remember? And Haggar probably doesn’t know she’s alive. But if he’s starting to sense things the way I sensed Blue, then I think he was drawn down here by Ariella and Romelle.”

“You think things are about to get worse?” Shiro asked.

“Much worse. If he almost killed you before he knew they were here, he’s going to be a bitch to take on ifhe feels like he’s got to protect them from us.”

“Keith, maybe you should back off,” Shiro warned again. “Wait for Allura and Pidge.”

“Hey guys?” Hunk’s voice came in over the comm. “If you wait for Pidge, try not to tell her right away that Lance tasered her dad and locked him in a closet.”

“Is Sam okay?” Keith spun slowly in the elevator, rubbing his face with both hands and pushing his helmet up slightly by accident. This just got better and better. “He isn’t hurt, is he?”

“He’s okay, the stun didn’t last too long. I just took down the door of the closet to get them out,” Hunk answered. “The engine room is gonna be harder, Lance fried the entry controls. This door’s made to hold up in an attack, it’s gonna take us some time to get in here.”

“Keep working on it,” Keith ordered, hitting the elevator button again. “I’m going to try to talk to him.”

The elevator door opened and Keith slipped out, turning off his comm unit to avoid further advice and summoning his bayard. The black short sword appeared at his side as he darted down the hallway, ducking into an alcove and crouching behind one of two chairs that sat there for social hours. Everything was silent, all of the crew had taken the warning to hide seriously.

Keith moved quickly down the hall to the newly finished memory chamber, flattening himself against the wall by the open door when he heard voices inside. He carefully craned his neck to see inside, trying to stay out of sight.

“So what do we do now?” Ariella asked.

“Wait,” came the calm answer.

“Wait for what?”

“Just…wait.”

It was the first time Keith knew of that she had spoken to anyone besides Romelle without any hostility. She was looking up at the figure standing next to her for cues while Romelle paced almost frantically in front of them.

Keith felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Lance, standing tall in the red armor with one hand on his hip and the other supporting the rifle that rested against his shoulder. He’d missed him so badly, been so worried about whether he was okay, these were not the circumstances he had wanted to find him under. There were some spots of blood on his white breastplate, likely from his encounter with Shiro, and he was visibly favoring one leg. He might have disarmed Shiro and technically won the fight, but he hadn’t gotten away unscathed.

“How long do we have to wait?” Ariella asked softly. She seemed afraid. Lance, to his credit didn’t show any annoyance.

“Just a little longer. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay.”

Keith withdrew and took a moment to prepare, his fingers tightening around his bayard. He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have to use it against Lance, because he honestly didn’t know if he would be able to.

“Lance,” he called, “it’s me, Keith. Can we talk for a minute?”

There was a pause.

“Who’s Keith?” He heard Lance whisper to Romelle.

Keith had been prepared for a lot of things. To be fired upon, to be yelled at, to be threatened. He’d experienced a lot of things on missions, things like broken bones and stab wounds. But nothing had prepared him for how much it could hurt to hear those two words spoken by that particular voice.

“Your boyfriend,” Romelle whispered back. “Sort of. It’s complicated.”

“He’s not my—!” Keith reflexively yelled back, strangling himself off in frustration. “Look, can we talk or not?”

“Are you at least hot?” Lance called back. The question was accompanied by the sound of his rifle powering up to fire. “I’m gonna blow your head off either way, but you sound like a fox, man.”

Keith didn’t answer. Somehow it hurt even more to hear that instead of a serious response. The fall back to banter when backed into a corner was very much Lance, Keith would have felt better about a potential fight if something about the other Paladin felt alien or different.

“Is he hot?” He heard Lance whisper. It was followed by that throaty little chuckle he sometimes did when he was nervous. It wasn’t much, but it was at least a small sign that he wasn’t completely on top of the situation.

“He’s pretty,” she answered. “But he won’t be anymore if you blow his head off, so you might want to reconsider doing that.”

Keith sighed and summoned his shield. He prepared to defend himself from incoming fire and stepped into the open doorway.

“I’d also prefer if you reconsidered doing that,” he said, scanning the room briefly now that he had a clear view.

Ariella and Romelle were right where they had been before, but Lance was now in the middle of the room with his gun leveled exactly where Keith was standing. He was conspicuously between Keith and the other two, prepared to take anything that came their way himself. Confused or not, Lance was still Lance and Keith knew he had to use that to his advantage.

“It’s not safe to fire that gun in here, Lance, not with the girls here. The blast could ricochet, or damage something that might cause a fire.”

He watched Lance carefully. It was hard to read his expression since he wore his helmet and had the gun leveled, but he saw the other Paladin’s eyes flick to the side as if trying to glance at the two Alteans he couldn’t see. It was quick, then the focus was back on Keith.

_Gotcha._

“Okay, I do know you. You’re the one who usually wears the red,” Lance started talking, his fall back. It distracted and annoyed people, gave him a chance to find an open. Keith wasn’t falling for it. “Looks like everybody’s wearing black today. Too bad I didn’t get the memo, I would’ve tried to match.”

“I’m coming into the room,” Keith said, taking a step forward and refusing to let his attention be diverted. He paused when the gun followed him and Lance’s finger moved, starting to squeeze the trigger. “I’m just coming inside, then I’m going to move to the right. Over there, away from the girls.”

“Keith, I wouldn’t do that,” Romelle advised nervously. “I don’t think he’s in a mood to be reasonable.”

“It’s fine, Romelle. See? Romelle knows me, she knows I’m not going to hurt her,” Keith kept his eyes locked with Lance’s as he took another slow step forward. As promised, he began to move to his right. It wasn’t a small room, it had been designed not just with Coran and Allura in mind but for a place where social gatherings could be held in deep space where other venues were lacking. “Once I’m in here, the doorway will be clear. Ariella and Romelle can go. Me for them, all right?”

Lance hesitated. He didn’t want to let them out of his sight, he didn’t trust anyone here or believe that Keith would just let them go.  

“You heard the announcement a few minutes ago, right?” Keith kept pushing. He stopped when he was halfway into the room, back against the far wall away from the others. “There’s a Threat Level Ten in effect. Nobody is out there, it’s safe for them to go.”

The pause that followed was the hard part. Keith wasn’t used to long moments of quiet in a fight, he worked best when he was constantly moving and changing his strategy on the fly. But Lance was a thinker, he lined up his shots before he fired. If it came down to a real fight Keith knew he was going to have to avoid giving Lance a chance to do any thinking, but for the moment he wanted him to consider what was best for the safety of the others.

“Ariella,” Lance still had his eyes glued on Keith when he did speak. “Go out the door and turn right. There’s an elevator halfway down the hall. Romelle, show her how to get to the Paladin hangar. It’s locked but there’s a small hallway leading to it, it’s safe there.”

“Romelle, take her,” Keith reinforced Lance’s request when Romelle looked uncertain. “Just go there and wait, somebody will come find you when everything is over.”

Ariella held out a hand for Romelle to take. Romelle hesitated, looking back and forth between Lance and Keith, but took it and let herself be pulled out of the room. As soon as they were out of sight Keith reactivated his comm.

“Coran, lock down the memory chamber,” he commanded. “ _Now._ ”

Half a second later the door slid shut, overridden from the bridge. Lance’s gun remained steady but his head turned slightly and his eyes slid over to the doorway, and for a few brief seconds he was distracted. With the door closed the chamber reactivated, apparently still set on automatic mode. Keith didn’t know much about the programming but he knew the images that flickered into being weren’t coming from him, so the chamber must have prioritized the Altean that was present.

It looked like a mix between a lab and a hangar. There were two small airlocks to one side, a hallway leading somewhere else at the other. Keith caught a glimpse of a laboratory table and two tubes, and some very disturbing details.

There was no mistaking the man sealed in the healing pod, or the cruiser that floated just outside the window. The huge, polymer glass window, that offered a view in the distance of a massive stable wormhole and a very familiar gate beyond. The change caught Lance off guard, he glanced back at the room behind him before whipping back around to look back at Keith.

Keith didn’t have to wait for Lance to raise the gun back up to know that he was about to fire. The fact that the room suddenly shifted away from the lab as Lance suppressed it and the look on Lance’s face told him he’d just seen something he wasn’t supposed to. Keith started running, moving around the perimeter of the room and keeping his shield raised.

“Haggar’s got Lotor!” He yelled to Coran and Shiro. “They have his scuttled cruiser and they’ve repaired the rift gate!”

He banished his bayard and drew his Marmora blade, gripping it by its blade and pausing to throw it at Lance. Lance had to duck to avoid taking it to the face, and the second the gun wasn’t pointed at him Keith darted forward. He closed the distance and threw a roundhouse kick Lance only barely managed to block with the body of the gun, then spun and slammed into him with his shield and the full weight of his body.

He had expected that now being the bigger and more solid of the two meant Lance would go down, but it wasn’t that easy. He saw the shield coming and threw himself forward into it, the force making his feet slide back about a foot but not making him completely lose his footing. 

Close combat was not Lance’s specialty. Keith would have bet money on him up against any normal soldier, but in a ranking of the Paladins he wasdown below himself and Shiro. He knew he had to get the gun away from him and that he had to keep him from putting space between them. Keith’s best chance of getting him down without anybody ending up hurt too badly was to get in close and knock him unconscious somehow.

Lance suddenly stopped pushing back, letting himself drop to the ground like dead weight. Keith swore as he fell forward, shifting to land in a roll that would bring him back up onto his feet and let him spin around to bring the shield up in time to take the brunt of the gunfire that came at him. He backed up quickly and scooped up his knife, shoving it back into its sheath at his back and summoning his bayard back to his hand.

He didn’t pause to give Lance any time to collect himself, moving in again. This time Lance tried to back up to put some space between them, but there was a strip of metal laid out on the floor that had been generating Ariella’s enclosure. His foot caught on it and he fell back, firing wildly up toward the ceiling. Keith took advantage of the mistake and came in fast, sliding to his knees next to lance and dropping his bayard to bring his shield down hard on the other Paladin’s gun arm with both hands. He tensed as he did it, already imagining the worst and feeling guilty for having to go this far.

The edge of the shield caught the joint between Lance’s bracer and glove, or at least it should have. Instead it hit something solid and metal, and instead of a broken wrist bone the result was bright blue sparks. When they hit his shield it started flickering as if overloaded, disappearing and leaving him holding nothing and off balance.

Lance had let go of the gun, but now he reached around with his other hand and pulled Keith’s exposed knife out of its sheath. Keith threw up an arm to block the incoming stab just in time, he felt the blade rake across the side of his neck as he swatted it away and felt blood start to run down his skin from the shallow cut. He then had to twist and block again as the knife came back around at his side. He felt it slice through his under armor just as he managed to catch Lance’s arm, slamming it down on the floor and making him drop the blade.

“Can’t you just stay down?” He complained through clenched teeth, kicking the gun away further to give him a moment to lunge for the knife.

Keith rolled forward and scooped the Marmora blade up from the ground as he passed, putting a little bit of distance between them before he turned to face his opponent again. But Lance wasn’t on his feet, he was on one knee with a bracer removed, wincing as he held his wrist. Something he was wearing had been broken.

“Lance?” Keith tried to catch his breath, ignoring the tickle of blood still trickling at his neck. “Talk to me, buddy. Tell me what’s going on here. We’re on the same side, whatever you think is going to happen to the surviving Alteans, we’ll help you keep them safe. We’re trying to protect them too, you _know_ that.”

“Yeah, okay,” the sarcasm was palpable, but that was all Lance managed to get out. Whatever it was he had on his wrist was giving him some kind of feedback and causing him a lot of pain.

Keith could also see a light on Lance’s other wrist, flashing at regular intervals as a secondary device kept activating. The walls of the memory chamber, which had been on active standby, started to flicker with images.

For an instant they were back in the strange lab where Keith had seen Lotor in a healing pod, but then that was gone to be replaced by a field of flowers like the ones Allura had often conjured up in her leisure time. That disappeared in the wake of the engine room of the Atlas, which faded into some kind of bridge Keith could barely see through the smoke of surrounding flames.

A war room on a space station with a view of a small planet below.

An eerily familiar courtyard under a sunlit, summer sky.

The stretch of sixth-floor hallway where the fight with Shiro must have occurred.

An unfamiliar planet in the aftermath of a very serious battle, dead and ruins for miles with three very distinctively armored bodies lying nearby.

The chamber, Keith noticed, was changing in time with the flashes of light. The bracelets Lance was wearing had to be transmitting what was going through his head, and he had a feeling it was also at least partially controlling what went through it too. Lance was struggling to remove the broken one, they didn’t seem to be made in a way that allowed him to take them off by himself.

Keith took a step forward, lowering the knife in his hand and putting it back in its sheath again. As soon as he did Lance was on his feet and taking a step back toward his gun, which had dissipated back into his bayard. He only made it that one step before the pain made him drop down to his knees again, but Keith stopped moving forward.

“Just let me help you already!” Keith exclaimed, unable to keep his frustration back anymore. He didn’t want to fight anybody on his team, but particularly not Lance. He couldn’t go through this again, not after everything that had happened with Shiro. He was tired of having to hurt people he cared about because he wasn’t capable of fixing things any other way. “I don’t want to fight you, Shiro didn’t want to fight you! We’ve all been fighting side by side for years now, how can you seriously not remember any of us?”

Lance’s attention was divided between him and the bracelet. Finally there was another, bigger spark, and he managed to rip the device from his wrist and toss it away across the room. When he did the other one stopped flashing, but this time the light stayed on and it stayed active. The memory chamber reflected the glitch, melting into an almost horror movie-esque scene as several memories overlapped.

The willpower it took to get rid of the bracelet must have been exhausting. Lance let himself fall back on the floor for a moment, groaning in pain.

Keith felt as if he had been punched in the gut as he swept the room with wide eyes, taking in the burning courtyard and the bodies of the Paladins lying off to the side. They were too tall to be any of the current Paladins, he could see that now, and Allura had told him this courtyard was tucked away in Oriande where Lance could never have seen it.

_Are these are Alfor’s memories?_

Lance didn’t even seem to notice what was going on around them, let alone to react to it. Nothing about him changed, it wasn’t as if Keith was suddenly looking at Alfor. But if these old images were all that were being allowed to filter through without being edited then it was no wonder Lance didn’t remember anybody.

That other bracelet had to go, and it had to go now.

Keith summoned his dropped bayard from across the room and it manifested in his hand, the short-bladed sword out and ready as he darted forward at Lance. He didn’t want to hurt him anymore but he had to keep him down, so he aimed to slam the blade down next to Lance’s neck to pin him to the floor by his collar. He reached out, pulling from Black, forcing a flow of quintessence through his blade to help it pierce through the defensive material.

Lance saw him coming and rolled to his right, but the blow came so close that it chipped the armor’s collar as he made his escape. Keith growled out a soft wear as he angrily yanked his blade out of the memory chamber floor and followed, trying to stop Lance from reaching his bayard.

Lance put on a burst of speed and hit the ground sliding, grabbing the bayard as he passed. He reached the far wall, which at the moment appeared to be a low stone wall that was crumbling and covered with soot, and used it to launched himself up and forward. He caught Keith by surprise and he tried to skid to a stop, but he wasn’t able to keep himself out of Lance’s reach.

Everything happened all at once. The red bayard flashed, the light bleeding outward and solidifying into the silver and red broadsword Keith already knew was coming but still wasn’t prepared for. Lance brought it down and around in an arc, the tip nicking the floor before it came up toward his face. Keith had only a few seconds to react, trying to block it with his own weapon even though he knew it was useless. The broadsword sliced clear through his blade, which had been hardened and made too unyielding by the fortifying quintessence, the momentum throwing the black bayard completely out of his hand. The sword finished its arc by raking across his helmet, leaving a deep gash in the protective screen.

Keith leapt backward, his weakened helmet falling away to bounce across the floor, but it was only for the length of a breath. Lance had already thrown his own helmet aside and fallen into a battle stance, out of breath but still not backing down. Giving up on the bayard, Keith drew his Marmora knife and activated it, praying he could take advantage of his greater experience with close combat.

Lance met him in the middle of the room, the two blades connecting with a force Keith felt down into his joints. That broadsword had to be heavy, almost ridiculously heavier than the slight two to five pounds of an average war sword, and the extra weight made it hard to parry.

 _It’s an Altean broadsword,_ Keith remembered.

Alteans were stronger than most other species, Keith already knew that. They’d seen it when Allura had easily thrown Shiro into an escape pod, or when she’d forced open the sealed doors of the abandoned Blade of Marmora base when they’d received the old SOS signal. When Romelle had pried more than three hundred pounds of metal out of Blue’s jaws so they would open, and when Allura had thrown Lotor clear across the Castle bridge.

The only good thing about this development was that Lance didn’t seem to have had enough up close combat today to realize he had a strength advantage. But he _did_ have an advantage, even one he didn’t know yet, and Keith’s blade was not going to hold up to that sword for very long. Lance’s movement wasn’t slowed down by the extra weight, the sword came around and arced down at him. Keith was forced try to block it away to the side instead of catching it with his own blade and bringing it to a stop, to back away and give ground while he tried to come up with a better strategy.

There was a beeping sound that seemed to come from Lance’s armor, and he suddenly disengaged from the fight. He backed away quickly, fishing something out of his breastplate and holding it to his mouth.

“Natille! Took you long enough, don’t you think? Do you have the bridge?”

“ _Yes, the bridge is secure…Sir._ ”

“Good. Shut down and unseal the memory chamber. And do it like _now_ please, it’s getting kind of rough down here.”

The bridge. Somebody had taken the bridge. Keith turned on his comm unit, keeping his blade held out in front of him defensively even as the images around them flickered and died down and the room’s door slid open.

“Coran? Coran!” No response. Keith cursed as Lance made it out the door and disappeared into the hallway, taking off after him. “Shiro! We have intruders on the bridge, and Lance is back loose in the halls!”

_“I know! They cut out about a minute ago, I’m on my way to try and help Hunk get into the engine room! Maybe we can override their access.”_

“I’m going after Lance,” Keith growled, speeding up as he spotted Lance ahead, kicking open the door to the stairs and disappearing through it rather than risking the elevator.

_“Be careful!”_

Keith hit the stairwell door running, throwing it open and bounding up the staircase. Lance was right ahead of him, and even though he was fast he didn’t quite have the same stamina as Keith. As the distance closed Lance stopped at a landing and spun to face him. The broadsword was gone, but now he had his gun back, and he fired off a few shots that made Keith skid to a stop and duck.

“Natille! Are you ready?” Lance snapped into the comm he was carrying.

“ _Will be in a tick! …and…we’re ready.”_

“Aim the ship at the planet, cruising speed.”

“ _Wait, the…do what?”_

“The planet, the planet!” Lance sounded frustrated as he fired off two more shots, keeping Keith pinned down. “It’s the big floaty rock in front of us in space! Aim the big floaty metal thing you’re on at the big floaty rock, I’m not speaking ancient Altean here!”

He shoved dropped the comm back into his breastplate and shook his head.

“Honestly, _kids_ ,” he complained, raising the gun to aim better with both hands free. He fired off a barrage of shots, making Keith dive for cover.

“Lance, there are hundreds of people on this ship!” He called from where he was flattened against the lower banister. “They’re going to die!”

Lance sighed and stopped firing. Keith heard the shifting of cloth, as if he were leaning against the upper railing and looking down. Keith carefully peeked around and found him with his gun lowered. He didn’t know what was going on, but the game had obviously changed at this point. Keith took a careful step out into the open on the lower landing, letting his blade fade back into a knife but prepared to activate it again if necessary.

“Look, I don’t want to kill the people on this ship,” Lance said calmly. “You’re all terrible people, but I’m going to assume that you don’t want them all dead either. So what’s going to happen is—”

The ship suddenly jumped, everything shaking like an earthquake. Keith lost his balance and fell backward against the wall, and a second later he felt Lance’s full weight hit him as he was thrown forward down the stairs. Warmth ran over Keith’s fingers as Lance groaned and pushed himself up, the knife blade lodged in his side.

“Oh no,” Keith whispered, letting go of the handle. He stared at the red smearing across his bracer from the friction of Lance’s landing, the black fabric of the other Paladin’s under armor staining darker as the ship leveled out. “No, no, no.”

“I said aim it, not barrel roll the damn thing!” Lance yelled angrily upward in the stairwell, even though they both knew nobody could hear him. He looked down at the knife stuck in his abdomen just above his belt and then yanked it out of himself with a hiss, slamming it down into the floor. He brought his bayard back up, pressing the barrel against Keith’s forehead and powering it up to fire.

The knife was within easy reach. One swing, a stab into the side of Lance’s neck, and he could end this entire thing. It was the only option that gave him even the most remote chance of getting out of the stairwell alive, there was no more ducking and hiding. Keith’s fingers closed around the knife’s hilt.

He didn’t pull it out of the floor. He tightened his grip on it, taking comfort in the fact that he had something of his mother’s at his side, and closed his eyes.

He wouldn’t have killed Shiro back on the satellite, and he wasn’t going to kill Lance. Maybe it was his karma for being the one to give in to power and put so much suffering into motion in his past life. Maybe it was Zarkon’s divine punishment to see the people he loved the most ripped apart by the war he’d allowed to begin, to be forced to choose between killing them or dying himself.

_Who do you think deserves to make it out of here?_

Keith hadn’t hesitated before, and he didn’t waver now. Lance was still his choice.

He waited, his heart pounding, not sure if this was going to hurt or if it would be over so fast he didn’t notice. The muzzle of the gun was pressing into his skin, everything was just one trigger pull from being over.

And then, suddenly, the weight straddling him was gone.

Keith’s eyes snapped open just in time to see Lance disappear back up the stairway and around the turn. There was a flash of light next to him as the gun disappeared, leaving the red bayard lying on the landing next to him.

“Lance!” Keith jumped up, grabbing the blade out of the floor and running after him. He was shaken, slowed down a bit by his confusion over what had just happened, but the steady trail of small blood droplets led him up two more flights and through a door.

It was the engineering hallway. All the way at the other end he could see Lance running, saw him hit the stairs and go up. Heading for the Lion hangars, most likely. Keith took off after him, and found himself very nearly slammed into the wall as Shiro came out of the cross-hallway and hit him full force.

“Was that Lance!?” Hunk’s panicked voice came from above as Keith unceremoniously threw Shiro off of him. “What’s going on with the ship, what was that shaking?”

“We’re on a collision course with Arus!” Keith yelled back over his shoulder as he scrambled to his feet and kept running. “Get that door open and get us some kind of control over this ship!”

He bolted up the stairs and down the hallway, bypassing the elevator to take the next stairwell down. The damn ship was built like a Navy carrier, there was no direct way from some places to others. By the time he reached the Lion hangar the door was already open, and Lance was sprinting across the hangar toward the airlock with Ariella in tow. She was pulling Romelle along with her.

“Bring us into a glide!” Lance was yelling into his comm. A second later Keith felt the stabilizers firing to slow the ship’s descent as the Atlas changed course to make impact at a less severe angle. Outside he could see that they were well within the planet’s atmosphere, and Lance had no reason not to open both the inner and outer doors of one of the airlocks. He scooped up a bag that had been set up by the door, pulling a pistol out of it and aiming it at Keith to bring him up short. Behind him Keith heard Shiro catch up, coming to stand next to him.

“Okay, all good,” Lance said into his comm. “Go for it.”

For a long moment, nothing happened. Lance kept the pistol trained on them but didn’t fire, and Keith didn’t dare move in for a fight while he stood so close to the open doors. Then he felt the ship shudder and the hangar lights flickered out, leaving the space lit only by the windows lining the top of the hangar and the open airlock. Everything went eerily quiet.

“Lance, what did you do?” Shiro asked, looking up at the darkened lights.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you,” Lance answered, absently scratching his temple with the muzzle of the pistol before aiming it back at them. “I had some alchemists remove your power crystal so I could take it with me. I was going to just let you float in space, but you know, that whole ‘there’s no oxygen up there’ thing. But hey, look on the bright side…instead of following us like he wants to, Keith can stick around here and try to use his Lion to keep you from crashing.”

Outside the airlock, a shadow fell over the side of the hangar as Lotor’s cruiser appeared, dropping down to descend even with the Atlas. Its airlock lined up with theirs and opened but it didn’t dock completely, leaving a slight space between the two craft. Lance tossed the bag at his feet into it while Acxa came up to the edge and helped Ariella climb aboard.

Lance was holding his injured side with one hand and the gun with the other. He holstered the weapon and turned to Romelle, offering his clean hand.

“This is your chance,” he told her. “I promise you, you’ll be safe if you come with us. You don’t belong here.”

Romelle looked back at Keith and Shiro, hesitating. She looked so lost, Keith wished he could grab her and pull her back to safety. But then her face took on a look of resolve, and she turned to take Lance’s hand.

“No, Romelle!” Shiro whispered. “What is she doing?”

“What we can’t,” Keith answered.

Lance wiped his other hand on his leg to clean it and then lifted Romelle up by her waist so that Acxa could help her into the other vessel. When she was out of view he turned back to them, looking exhausted. He smirked, shooting them a finger gun salute.

“Hasta la later, Keith.”

He grabbed the support just inside the cruiser airlock and jumped up inside, and a few seconds later the smaller ship pulled away from the Atlas. Keith sprinted over to the edge now that the danger was gone, watching as three Altean pods flew away from the Atlas and docked with the Galra vessel.

Lance was right. He wanted to go after them, but he couldn’t leave the Atlas like this.

He made a beeline for Black, the Lion rising from its berth and moving to meet him halfway, already making a run for the open airlock even as Keith was still climbing into the cockpit. He no longer had his helmet so he had to wait until he’d thrown himself into his seat before he could access his communications.

“Hunk, to Yellow! Get out here and help me, we have to see what we can do to stop this ship from crashing!”

“On my way!”

“Coran? Coran! Are your comms up? Do you have any residual power?”

There was a short wait before Coran’s voice came over the speaker.

“Sorry! Everybody’s still sort of fighting our way out of the handcuffs and ropes. Not my proudest hour. We do have some residual power left, but not much.”

“I’m on my way to the bridge,” Shiro’s voice came over his own comm as Keith maneuvered Black toward the front bow of the ship, bringing him up to press upward and try to steer the massive bulk toward some kind of softer landing. “How long will that bit of power last?”

“Not long,” Coran answered. “Residual is just that, residual. If we were closer to the ground it might be enough to slow us, but at this rate all it can do is keep the communications and visuals open.”

“What about that crystal?” Hunk’s voice joined in as Yellow appeared beside Black, following Keith’s lead to try and aim the Atlas toward a forest landing away from any Arusian settlements. “The second crystal set up for the wormhole! It charges as the ship’s used, it’s basically a short burst mix of balmera power and Allura’s energy. I mean, it’s got enough kick to light up the teludav, right?”

“Might work,” Coran supposed. “We could probably fire the landing thrusters, but everything else would go down. You’d have to steer.”

“Then shut everything down,” Shiro commanded. “Route to the crystal and fire those thrusters. Keith, Hunk, can you handle this?”

“We’ll find out in two minutes,” Keith answered, punching his thrusters up to full power.

They had done this before with the Castle of Lions, keeping it from diving into an exploding star, but that had been with five Lions and no air friction. The gravity had been much, much greater, but here the air caused drag.

He felt Black vibrate as the Atlas’ landing thrusters fired, and the ground came flying up to meet them a little bit slower. He gripped his controls tightly, trying to will everything to go smoothly, feeling everything start to shake as the ground got close enough to cause blowback from all the landing gear. Closer. Closer. They were about two stories above the ground when he felt the Atlas go silent.

“Hunk, move,” he ordered, punching Black’s accelerator to get out from under the behemoth as it dropped.

They cut it close. The sound of the ship hitting the ground was loud enough to rattle him even within his Lion. Both of them hovered there, watching, until the emergency exits started opening and people began to disembark.

“Find high ground,” Keith ordered Hunk dully, rising with Black to take a better look at the environment. “Start a watch. You go east, I’ll go west. We stay alert until Allura and Pidge get here, we’re too close to Galra space for comfort.”

They parted ways and Keith landed Black on a high cliff to the west, overlooking the valley where the Atlas had landed. He sat in silence, keeping watch over where the Lions’ flying citadel lay powerless and vulnerable.

Here on Arus, back where it all began.


	25. Epilogue

Lansar limped slowly down the hallway toward his quarters, thinking about a hot shower. The residential level of the hub were filled with the very loud—and very annoying—sounds of celebration from the young Alteans enjoying their recent victory over the humans. They had successfully rendered one of the Coalition’s most powerful weapons useless, and unexpectedly brought home prisoners of war with their efforts.

He didn’t think there was very much to celebrate. This was a war, not a game, and one win didn’t add up to much. Plus, he was tired and cranky, and the noise was grating on him.

He reached his quarters and stepped inside, throwing the bag he’d taken from the Atlas onto his bed. His door was closing behind him, but he heard somebody catch it and push it back open.

“What now?” He groaned, turning to see who had followed him. It was Acxa.

“Honerva said to let you know not to hurry,” she told him, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed. “She said she’ll give you five vargas, that you should eat and rest before you need to debrief.”

“You mean she wants five vargas alone to inspect that power crystal before I bother her,” Lansar answered. Still, enough time to eat and rest sounded wonderful, no matter what the reason.

“You’re learning,” Acxa smirked.

“There’s nothing to learn,” Lansar rolled his eyes, gingerly sitting on the edge of his bed. “If she’ll let me kill one of the people under my command for disobeying an order, she probably doesn’t care about me personally either.”

“Were there any casualties?”

“Why do you want to know?”

There was a pause before she answered, then she shrugged. “Just curious. You’re bleeding, should I call someone in?”

“No,” Lansar answered, carefully unclipping the breastplate he wore to give himself easier access to his injury. “I don’t want any of them doing any alchemy anywhere near me right now.”

“All right,” she agreed without asking him why. Either she already knew, or she just didn’t care. And she was too curious not to care. “Do you want me to sew you up?”

“Can you?”

“Better than most.”

“Then yeah. Give me half a varga to clean up first.”

Acxa nodded and pushed away from the doorway. She disappeared into the hall without further comment or prying, letting the door close behind her.

The truth was, Lansar didn’t trust anyone here. That malfunctioning suppressor today should have been easy to remove, it was supposedly in place to help him. But the fact that the locking mechanism had a code that he hadn’t been given told him that he wasn’t meant to take the devices off. And if _he_ wasn’t the one deciding which memories didn’t get to be accessed, something was wrong.

This whole situation was wrong, really. He couldn’t remember enough to pinpoint how, but he did know that. He could feel it deep down, he was in the middle of something he shouldn’t be in the middle of. But the semi-blank slate of his memory made it difficult for him to make the right decisions, so he was stuck for the time being.

Lansar unclipped the rest of the armor and peeled off the under armor, stumbling into the shower. He got a better look at his wound there, but he had already known from the feel of it that it wasn’t terribly serious. The bleeding was slowing down and he wasn’t going to need too much fixing.

When he was done he didn’t bother to dress. He waited for Acxa to return, which she did with a first aid kit in hand. He settled the towel he wore around his hips and let her inspect the wound, wincing slightly with each touch.

“Do you want a localized painkiller?” She asked when she saw him make a face. Lansar considered it, and decided what the hell. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone.

“Absolutely.”

Acxa pulled a small bottle and a syringe out of the kit. She filled the syringe by eye, and he tensed as she injected it near the wound site. Within a few moments, the pain started to fade and he relaxed.

“You’re not a general,” he observed as she started to clean up what little blood was still trickling out. “I mean, you’re obviously a general, but before that. You work like a field medic.”

“Everybody starts somewhere,” Acxa said with a shrug.

“Yeah. But a half-Galra general under Lotor would probably start out as a field medic for Galra.”

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“You dose drugs for smaller bodies,” Lansar pointed out. “Haran said you did it when I brought in the Sincline, too. Galra are pretty big compared to humans or Alteans, so why would a general under a Galra prince be able to eyeball the right drug dosage for a human body if she’s been in the Galra military?”

Acxa paused in what she was doing. She looked up at him and gave him a smile, one that was sweet and polite and obviously fake, and she didn’t bother to even try to hide that it was insincere.

“Don’t be so observant,” she advised. “Now isn’t the time. It will only get you into trouble you can’t handle right now.”

She went back to working. Lansar didn’t say anything else.

When she was done stitching him up, Acxa put a bandage over the whole area and left him to his own devices. Lansar dressed and decided to put off food in favor of rest, dropping back down to the bed. He picked through the bag he’d brought with him from the Lion hangar, tucking the guns away in drawers for later use and pulling out the flight suit he’d initially worn. As he shook it out to hang it up, something fell out of the pocket.

He draped the flight suit over the chair and scooped up the paper, bound tightly into a ball. It must have been very far down in the pocket, probably brought with him when he’d initially left Earth. He had to be careful to not destroy the edges, carefully smoothing it out on his leg before moving it over to the light to see it better.

It was a sketch. Not an amazing one, but clear enough to get the basic gist of it. The Lion in the picture had the general shape of the red one he’d been looking at in the hangar, and the portrait of the man sitting on its head and reading a tablet wasn’t terribly hard to identify. The features weren’t completely drawn in yet but the hairstyle was there, the same one Lansar saw when he looked in the mirror.

The lines were deep and rough, dark and angry. Somebody had put many hours into this sketch, layer after layer of lines and shading. It was an incomplete work, marred with the marks of frustration that came from not being able to get details right. And someone had really, really wanted to get this right.

It was an intimate sort of thing, the kind of thing that was drawn when its subject wasn’t looking. Lansar felt like it was important, like he’d been carrying it with him for a reason. He didn’t think he was an artist, so somebody else had probably drawn it. It was probably that somebody, more than the picture, that held that importance for him.

He got up and dug in the desk drawer for some tape, crawling across his bed to attach the sketch to his wall. Lansar stretched out and tried to relax, staring at the smudges and penciled lines until he finally fell asleep.

* * * * *

Keith finished pulling on the familiar black uniform, tucking his blade into the sheath at his hip before fighting to push open the door of his quarters. The Atlas was still down until at least tomorrow, when daybreak made it safer to leave the ship unguarded. Then Hunk, Coran and Allura could go to the nearby Balmera for some power crystals.

He didn’t intend to be here when they left. He only had a small window to follow Lotor’s cruiser, and he had to see if there was anything he could do before it was completely lost in Galra space. Pidge was sitting outside in the warm air of the Arusian spring, her eyes on her laptop as she ran diagnostics on the damaged black bayard. She looked up as he came out.

“Are you sure about this?” She asked. “About going alone, I mean?”

“Yeah,” Keith nodded, glancing back toward the ship before looking at her. “Are you sure you and Hunk want to cover for me? You don’t have to get involved.”

“Lance is our friend,” Pidge insisted. “Even if there is something wrong with him right now. If you can find out anything, now is probably the window to do it. Just be careful, okay?”

“I won’t be long,” Keith promised, pulling the hood of his Blade of Marmora uniform up to cover his hair. “This isn’t some kind of deep cover operation. I’m following them to the edges of Galra territory and just seeing if there’s anything I can find.”

Pidge nodded, and he stepped away from the light being cast by Green and slipped into the trees on his way toward Black.

“Good luck,” he heard her whisper as he left the others behind.

* * * * *

“I don’t even know what this is,” Shiro complained holding his arm up in the light of the flashlight he had. It had taken five hours, three members of the crew, and Allura and Keith both trying to follow the energy traces to find and gather his arm and its power source. “It might be ketchup.”

“Well, never let it be said Lance doesn’t have a sense of humor,” Coran answered, digging down into a box that had been brought to the bridge from the storage room. “Bit of Nunville will take all the stains right off, you know.”

“Humor isn’t really what I’d call anything Lance did today, Coran,” Shiro frowned, giving up on the stain and turning to the boxes. “Am I looking for anything specific?”

“Not really. Pretty much just going through to see if there’s anything of use,” Coran answered. “There’s nothing in this one.”

“Commander Shirogane?” Leutenant Dane got up from where he was sifting through another box. “You might want to take a look at this.”

The boxes were the salvage from Sendak’s ship, a mix of parts and pieces that they had been using to upgrade and augment the Atlas. There was no sense in letting good technology go to waste, and there was still so much left for Earth to strip before they had emptied that well.

“What is it?” Shiro asked, shining his flashlight over at Dane. He was sifting through piles of paperwork. “What sector is it from?”

“These were all taken from Sendak’s bridge, sir,” Dane finished smoothing out something he had found and carefully got up from his seat to pick his way over, tripping and stumbling over boxes and cartons. “A lot of forms, mostly. Some communications notes. All stuff that was shoved into a corner desk and ignored forever, mostly.”

He offered the bit of paper to Shiro, who took it and held it up to shine his light on it. As soon as he did he felt his heart stop.

“That’s not possible,” he managed after a moment. “This must have been put in that box by accident.”

“No sir…it was crumpled up in a ball along with some schematics,” Dane answered, looking back and forth between Shiro and Coran. “I just pulled it out from the middle of a mess of Sendak’s papers.”

Coran reached over and took the picture out of his numb fingers. Shiro felt lightheaded, and like his legs were going to give out. He leaned against his console as he moved around it, over to let himself sink down into Veronica’s empty chair. After a moment, Coran offered the photo of Shiro and Adam back to him.

“If…that wasn’t put in the box by accident,” Coran reasoned carefully, looking at Shiro with concern, “then how did it get on Sendak’s bridge?”

Shiro barely heard him. He felt like his brain had stopped working, like his entire world had just twisted upside down. He looked up at Coran, and when he spoke he barely recognized his own voice. It sounded lost, shocked.

“The only way it could have, I guess. The person carrying it was on Sendak’s bridge, and not dead in a fighter crash.”

* * * * *

The hubs were bustling with activity, and not the good kind. Not that there was ever any good activity in this raging hellscape, but it had its neutral days.

Adam walked through the hall confidently, his stolen guard uniform covering his identity from anyone who looked twice. Not that anyone did this late at night.

When he reached to the access gate that would let him out into Hub Five, he rested the prosthetic hand he now wore like a glove against the access panel. It slid open for him without an issue. Adam ducked into a restroom and changed, stowing the Galra armor up in the air duct before slipping back out and making his way back through the commercial district.

James was sitting on the floor of their room when he returned, blatantly ignoring the dangers of the sparks that were flying as he worked on the other prosthetic hand.

“How’s it coming?” Adam asked, dropping a take-out box into James’ lap as he danced past him over the piles of equipment filling the room. They might not have been able to go anywhere in the last couple days, but they hadn’t been idle.

“Just about done,” James answered, setting down his tool. He slid the hand over his own, flexing the fingers. “How’d yours work?”

“Like a charm.”

“So do you have any good news?”

“No,” Adam answered, reaching his bed. He climbed up over it to get to the chair in the far corner of the room, dropping down into it and flicking open his own container. “I have bad news, really bad news, and we-might-be-fucked news.”

“Bad news,” James requested.

“Lance left the outpost this morning with a group of those Tolkien rejects,” Adam frowned, spearing a piece of some kind of meat he couldn’t name. It almost tasted like beef. “In his MFE flight suit, and not under duress. He sounded like he was giving orders when he went.”

James dropped his tool and let his head fall back against the bed, clearly displeased. “Okay. Definitely an issue. Really bad news?”

“Things are being unloaded from the arena hub,” Adam told him. “Big things, little things, lots of things. This Honerva lady is getting ready to leave town. She must have just been using this as a home base while she looked for the Sincline, now she has what she wants and she’s bouncing. Shit’s going to hit a fan here once insiders find out Throk lost his backer.”

James made a plaintive whining noise, like a child who desperately wanted to throw a tantrum but knew this wasn’t a time or place. “Are we at least about to be fucked gently?”

Adam frowned thoughtfully. “Have you ever heard the term “bare and raw?”

“No, but it doesn’t sound gentle.”

“There’s a fleet from the Honor and Flame faction headed this way,” Adam said conversationally, shoving what he thought might be a vegetable into his mouth. “They want the outpost. Galra being Galra, they’re probably going to roll in, massacre everyone here after a massive fire fight, and then clean the place out for their own use. Oh, and they’ll  be here in a couple days.”

James sighed and nodded slowly, picking up his container and opening it up. “This sounds like it could be a problem.”

Adam nodded in agreement, cracking open his bottle of water.

“Slightly inconvenient.”

* * * * * * * * * *

 

((Hooray for the first part being done? This story started out as a little blurb about Lions, now here the first arc is finished at nearly 200,000 words. In the next few days I'll start getting up chapters for part two, because James and Adam deserve a chance to wreak havoc and Lance still owes Keith a coffee date. Thank you everyone for reading!))


End file.
